The Library Table

A Family Heirloom Begins

 

This must be the beginning of a family heirloom. This oak library table was the source of many jokes and snide remarks over the years. Mom brought this table home many years ago--at least 10, when she and Dad were up visiting. I'm not certain where it came from, but it was mustard yellow originally, and in pieces. Off it went, as I said it would, to the shed, where it was moved several times, before it inhabited a corner, behind a make-shift workbench, beneath a canvas bag with old sweatshirts, and an ash bucket with a rusted bottom next to it.Each time the shed was straightened out, I thought about dragging it out to the roadside with a "FREE" sign on it.

At one point, Bev saw it, and suggested it was something she wanted to undertake. This was a couple years ago. It was one of the things that was finally moved from the shed, when the recent tenants moved in this past fall. Like many of Mom's projects, this one expanded, because the hardware was no longer working, the pedestals were cracked and needed to be filled in, the finish on the top was in different layers and needed to be smoothed out, etc.

So the heirloom to be went to her ex husband's, who actually knows how to work on wood furniture, and he repaired the surface, drilled new holes for the pedestal legs, and returned it to us in a condition for painting. After painting, it went into the Air B&B room for the television. It looked beautiful. I was skeptical, but now there is a new story that involved our extended family and created this new heirloom, "The Oak Library Table That Mom Dragged Home."