french provincial. yes please.

When a girl's favourite pastime is pretending she's an interior designer, then perhaps a project or two around the house might just make it on the list despite a hectic (ok fine, I'll call it: traumatic) year...

The natural next step for Huz and my Robinvale (oh how I have wanted to do this for the past 10 years!) has been to knock down the wall between our kitchen and front room, making this one large (well larger), space to use for our dining table. 

I've been hankering after a larger space to put a table because when the five of us are piled around our current six seater table there's really no room for anyone else to join us. So guests have humoured us by sitting up high on bar stools at our kitchen counter or on a piano stool wedged in between the seats.

And I've loved it. When we bought Grandma D's Robinvale 11 years ago there was a bench seat on either side of the blue retro table, and I of course painted it white (of course!) and then we knocked that out, a few years later replacing it with a table I bought off Gumtree for $40 -a red stained, baltic pine piece, which I whipped into shape by painting the legs a creamy white, and sanding back the top.

I loved that table. And even better, Huz mentioned in passing the other day that he loves that table too. Nothing makes me happier than the idea that one of my projects has been lived around and loved around too. That's what I love about taking on projects to paint and find beauty in by scraping off old layers of paint, and finding aged timber beneath to expose.

Lots of life gets lived around a table like that one.

It takes me back to so many conversations over baby names, friends struggling over big decisions, mundane plan making, praying over medical decisions, discussing (loudly) strong opinions, disciplining, correcting, time-out giving, laughing with/at/over our children, quietly working from home in the morning's early hours, endless cups of tea and roses in the middle.

That table is pretty precious.

But it's time for a bigger one. And if I was the kind of girl who liked for stuff to mean something beyond itself then perhaps I would search hard to find the meaning in trading this little loved table for a newer, bigger, larger version of. But I don't even have to search for the meaning in it. As our boys grow, and as we grow together we are ready to expand. Expand the boundaries, expand the friendships, the connections with our community and this can't be done crammed in around a tiny table. It needs to be bigger to accommodate all the good, wonderful life that is to be lived from here on in.

So I'm excited. 

Besides, the new table is gorgeous. She has beautiful legs, and is oak! Yeek!

And I knew just how dangerous I might become (and now Huz knows for sure too) if I have a little creative freedom and a credit card, because he has given me free reign on this room, and we've been joking with each other that it's like this room is my 'Make a Wish Foundation' gift. Because I do really love to decorate.

And I've said it to him aloud, but it's strange how this very very material pursuit is deeply spiritual for me - this home making for my tribe - a room to meet them, provide for them, a place for them to sink into when the day is done, when they are ready to crowd together again after school and childcare and work and a space to be family together. 

It's a space that reflects me one hundred percent. Some french provincial lovin' from this mama.

And it makes me kind of thirsty, although that's the wrong word for it...but maybe you'll remember the parched feeling in the back of your throat when all you want and can think about is water. It feels like this: the desire to be a part of all that living and being and crowding around this new bigger table together with my loves. I thirst for being in that place with you littles. But if I can't actually be there next to you, at least I can make the space possible, make the space a place you can offload and relax and be with your daddy.

There's just one little thing...

...mummy really wants to put in a chandelier or two. So take the heart from my words here and see how much I want this room to feel like a huge hug from me my boys. And yeah, it might be unconventional for a tribe of boys to live under the sparkle of a chandelier or two, but then again we're really not that much of a conventional family. You just might have to put up with some sparkle and glam from up above. Sorry bout that, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do, and I say a big 'yes'! to the chandelier.

my red rose flowering for the first time! I planted this one solely so I could have it as a 'cut flower' inside without any guilt.
this one's for you Huz.