Nesting.

Nesting.

When Patrick and I were engaged and still living in the condo, there was so much wonder and excitement…where will we live…how will our jobs evolve…what will our lives be like? Patrick made jokes about me “nesting.”

“Are you going to go crazy and want to stay home all the time?”

Ummm, no.

“Going to have to keep you away from all the home stores when we move in!”

Sure enough, we have been in the house two years, and it’s becoming our own as we look for the little pieces here, the big pieces there. It drives me bonkers to walk into a house with absolutely no personality other than the one provided by a catalog of a mass-market retailer. Yes, they sell great pieces that have wide appeal, and therein lies the problem, not the solution. It was a real light bulb moment years ago when I was reading a Colin Cowie book and he made the obvious statement that in Europe, there aren’t decorating rules. If they like a painting, they just put it up anywhere. The furniture is all items they love or have a story about. And really, you have that same feeling in your closet. It may be the basic tee that you love, but don’t you want to wearthat little number that makes you feel fantastic? You should wear it every day. I don’t know how I got in this digression. All I’m saying is that you should surround yourself with things you love. Sounds basic, but take a look around right now…

Anyway.

So I’ve been in the throws of love with a store here called Paris Envy. Patrick and I were in there a while back and met the co-owner, a gentleman who is an electrical engineer in the day, and does amazing furniture building at night. We talked to him for like an hour and he’s amazing. While there, I spied a dining table with these old legs and a zinc top that he built for it. In the last few weeks, I’ve like completely pictured it in our home, and interestingly (to me, more so than anyone), I had all these like very nesting-ish thoughts. I mean, I love furniture, don’t get me wrong, but I would have never predicted my head-over-heels desire to have a table where family can sit and talk and laugh and stay over virtually anything else.

We went back on Saturday, met the other co-owner of the store and she is a DOLL. We proudly brought home the table and set it up, and about thirty seconds went by before I got out all of my table linens to dress the table different ways. The zinc is very modern but European and the legs are just the right amount of distressed.

Now I’m thinking it is very silly to have a whole blog post about our table. But I guess to me, it’s the latest straw in the nest.