I love these old Chrome and Formica kitchen tables.
And I’m drawn to them like a child is drawn to collecting rocks or dandelions.
Through the years I’ve gathered a small collection of these mid-century darlings in various colors and sizes. I didn’t set out to collect them. Truly, I didn’t.
Like so many collections, it happened by accident.
Since it’s impossible to display a collection of this size, a few of my pretties lie disassembled in the closet beneath the stairs. Their coming out party will most likely be when my kids leave the nest and need help in furnishing their first apartments. No problem – I’ve got ’em covered.
Our first vintage Formica table was a red one.
Back in the 1990s I had a Coca-Cola themed kitchen. We were stationed in San Diego, and our USMC friends took leave to visit family back in Pennsylvania. They knew I was in the market for a vintage red table, and called me from an antique shop to tell me they had found it. They bought it and arranged the shipping (such great friends), and my kitchen has been cool ever since.
It’s the table that my kids will most likely remember most when they look back on their childhood, which is funny when you think about it. They’ll have the same memories as someone who grew up in the 1950s – see, it’s funny, right?
A few years later, I added pink, aqua, yellow and green to the kitchen decor, making it the pastel paradise that it is today.
My next table was a yellow oval one with funky chrome balls in the pedestal.
I found it at a consignment store when we were stationed in Virginia Beach. The chairs were funky, so I had them reupholstered in aqua to match a set that I saw in a magazine. It was our first dining room table and the kids did their homeschooling on it every day.
A green one was found in pieces at a yard sale. I paid $25 for it and couldn’t wait to take it home. I laid the table top over the kitchen island to add a little color to the ugly kitchen in our rented home.
Next, I found a yellow table on the last day of an estate sell in 2003. I knew I needed another table like I needed a hole in my head . But when I overheard that everything was going into the dumpster in less than an hour, I couldn’t help myself. I paid $15 and it came home with me.
The blue table came from an antique shop in Elizabethton, Tennessee during our house hunt in 2008. I paid way too much for it, but it’s BLUE – and blue is not an easy find, so it was worth it. It sat on the back porch when we first moved here, but after a while I noticed the sun was fading it. Now it’s packed under the stairs with the others for the time being.
We use the little yellow drop-leaf table as our kitchen island. My daughter & I found it at the Hillsville Flea Market in 2010 and still remember the “Walk of Pain” as we carried it up uphill to get it to the car – ouch, what a memory.
Since I worried about another table on the back porch fading, a friend sold me her red table when she moved. It had been in her laundry room for years and the top had some damage, which made it perfect for the back porch.
I’m pretty sure I now have all the colors I need, (need – isn’t that a funny word?). But I’d still like to find a PINK one. I saw one once when I was antiquing in Asheville, North Carolina, but it was way too pricey. I still have dreams about it, beautiful pink dreams of the one that got away.
A few years ago, I loaned out my tables to a friend who opened up a pie shop here in town. It was so neat to see them all out together being used and admired. I have dreams of someday having a business where I can use them, but until then they patiently remain in the closet.
They say that the kitchen is the heartbeat of the home.
I think they say that because the table is in the kitchen.
We do ordinary things around our kitchen tables that draw us closer as a family. We gather together to share a meal, play games, snap peas and read family devotions. We celebrate milestones, have family meetings, we laugh, we cry, we pray. Life happens around the kitchen table. I think that’s why I love them so much.
No matter what your table may look like, enjoy gathering around it. Take pleasure in doing those simple, mundane, and every day things that bring us together and make us a family.
