Quite a title, hmm?
From almost the beginning of our time in this house, I have had this idea of making a coffee table together with Handsome Hero. This is a big deal. See, when we bought our first house we quickly realized that for the sake of our marriage we would do separate projects. We operated that way for years, working separately but encouraging each other in our endeavors, and slowly, as Handsome Hero has mellowed and my lazy attitude of "it's fine" or "it's good enough" has changed, we've become a team, able to work alongside each other. For the most part. I mean, let's not go crazy here.
Our teamwork capabilities have grown and been enriched in our time in this house, which is why I thought it would be fun to create a piece of furniture together. Celebrate solidarity and all that. I wanted to find two or three large logs {think stumps}, chisel off the bark, sand them down to a smooth finish, and clear-coat them. This is the best example I could find, except that stumps that big are hard to come by so ours would likely be smaller.
Perfect little coffee tables. They would be an awesome rustic element in an otherwise fancy room {I had a dream of them sitting in the center of two tufted sofas} which I was hoping would keep the space from being too formal.
Awesome, right? I mean, really.
It was going to be great. We were going to do this together. It would be cheap or free {you find stuff like this all the time for free on Craigslist}, Handsome Hero would get to use power tools, and I would get my awesomesauce tables.
I started to notice something, though. I was the only one enthused over this idea. Handsome Hero did not seem to share my vision. He was a willing but unexcited participant in my project. When I would find promising stump options on Craigslist, he was always reluctant. Finally, it dawned on me that this was only an awesome idea in my head. He would probably like the finished product, but wasn't looking forward to the process the way I was. I was thinking of this as bonding time, a chance to build and work together, to make something that we could be proud of, and that we would enjoy the process. He was looking at it as yet another thing that he would have to work on, yet another item on a long list of to-do's, and not seeing the journey as fun but as tedious.
In short, I am a whistle-while-you-work-er, and he wants to get the job done so that he can enjoy himself doing something non-work-related. We're just different, and that is why we are such a good team, but I realized that while we are doing a great job working together on the tasks we need to do, it does behoove me not to create extra ones just so that we can "enjoy" them together.
Why, yes, I just said behoove.
Fast forward a few weeks. I was checking Craigslist for various items we are need for our house, and I came across this beauty.
It is an actual original factory cart taken out of a factory in Atlanta, GA. It may be the coolest thing I've ever seen.
The wheels are cast iron, folks. This is the real deal, not some reproduction. I showed it to Handsome Hero, who showed more enthusiasm for this than he had ever shown over my log idea.
As you can see, we have now acquired it as our coffee table, and I love it. It is a focalpoint that everyone comments upon, and it makes me giddy. It would be awesome with some blingy accessories, but I have little kids, and while we don't really kid-proof in most areas, I think it's a little cruel to have untouchables right at their height, so our coffee tables are rarely adorned with anything but the children themselves. And aren't children the greatest accessories of all {said in holier-than-thou tone}?
As I drove home from purchasing the table, I passed no fewer than six trees that had fallen and already been cut into perfect little coffee-table sized stumps. I felt a pang, but it's not like we'll never make awesome stump coffee tables. Maybe awesome stump bedside tables for the guest room???
Honey, what do you think? We could work together! It would be fun!
Honey?
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