My Latest Score: Room + Board Drop Leaf Dining Table
I mentioned this in passing in the context of my review of minimagpie’s high chair, so I’m guessing many of you without babies who could not care LESS about the finer points of high chair selection might have missed it, but we found the perfect dining table for our petite dining room at Room + Board. The drop-leaf makes it workable on the occasion we have other guests over, but in its unexpanded state, it’s compact and tidy and unfussily simple, and ensures we have plenty of space to maneuver around it. We don’t have much Shaker-style furniture, but this appealed to Mr. Magpie and I both with its simplicity and elegance. The wood matches nearly perfectly with our Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams buffet — they no longer make the exact model we have, but it’s similar to this one, only ours has knobs on it. (And let me tell you: a buffet is a good investment piece, because it’s great storage for glassware, linens, wine keys, etc., plus it gives you space to serve dinner for a crowd without overcluttering the table. Finally, it affords a lovely space to decorate with all those home decor pieces you can’t live without, like your ceramic turkey (haha, I *needed* it), or, more authentically, the handwritten pierogi recipe from Mr. Magpie’s great grandmother that we have framed on it. P.S. — These magnetic acrylic frames are a GREAT way to showcase such treasures.)
ALSO. The great thing about a drop-leaf is that you can push it up flush against a wall and use it as a console/decor table or a breakfast table for two if you don’t have the space for it regularly, as shown above and below.
A couple of other drop leafs I like at a lower price point:
+Love the rustic vibe on this under $200 find.
+More of an industrial style but one thing I thought a lot about when selecting a dining table was that I didn’t want it to have too much heft to it since it’s going into a small space with not a ton of light. Like the Room and Board one I picked, this style is similarly “light on its legs.” The last thing I wanted was something big and bulky. That’s why I had to rule out this table, which was temporarily on the possibility list, but just felt too heavy-handed.
+We have a lot of dark woods, so we wanted to stick with that grain family, but this one is interesting.
Next shopping list item: chairs. I can’t make up my mind. I feel like I could go in five different directions, and each to different but equally chic effect. More to come.
You’re Sooooo Popular: The Chic Table Runner
The most popular items on Le Blog this week:
+Mini’s high-chair — now very well-reviewed!
+A chic pearl embellished sweater.
+The Audubon prints we have framed in our home.
+My favorite brush, ever. Yes, it’s petite, but it packs a punch.
+These have helped us make the most of our cabinets.
+The blouse I wore in our Christmas card pic!
#Turbothot: Intentionality.
I’m not huge into the earthy crunchiness of yoga, and will occasionally roll my eyes at some of the things the instructors say, but I recently took mini to a mommy-and-me yoga class at Pure Yoga on the Upper West Side, and something the lovely instructor, Mary, said has lingered in my head since. (Moms in the ‘hood: try this yoga class! The facility is stroller-friendly: an easy to access elevator and enormous and wide halls afford you plenty of space to wheel your stroller right inside without an issue. I have learned a lot about stroller accessibility lately and very much appreciate a space that accommodates one! I have to give a shout out to my girl Jackie for the recommendation!) I was a little skeptical about the class at first — I wondered if it was going to be a little too…too for me. I was nervous it would be a little too self-aware, a little hoity-toity fancy-pants, along the lines of: “Oh, your child doesn’t have a spiritual guide yet? How dare you.” There have been classes I’ve taken with mini that have felt that way to me — ones where there are moms one upping each other with baby gear and talking snootily about this, that, and the other thing. (Actual conversation overheard at a music class I once attended: “Oh, she gave him Similac…I know…I KNOW! Basically poison!”) I hate the competitive and over-fussy vibe you get in those spaces.
This class was different.
The moms were lovely and down to earth and many of them seem to have formed friendships with one another through the class. Several exchanged hellos and polite questions about how things were going. Others breastfed comfortably in the entirely women-filled room. And all were very welcoming to myself and mini, and curious to know where I’d moved from and how I was liking New York. (I think New Yorkers get a bad rap — I’ve found there to be more kind strangers in this city than I have in the combination of other cities I’ve lived in. (With the exception of Charlottesville. Charlottesville is bucolic bliss and, with the unfortunate exception of events that took place there earlier this year, people are genuinely kind to one another down there. People will stop to let you cross the street when you’re two blocks away from them — they’ll wave you on and idle in their car, making sure you feel plenty comfortable ambling across at your own pace. It’s a good place.) Everyone says the Midwest is full of salt-of-the-earth, kind people, and this is true, but it’s also true that there have been myriad gestures of neighborliness in our new home of New York City. But, maybe that’s a corollary to the fact that we have a baby and a dog and we probably look like country bumpkins. Anyway, that’s a story for a different day.)
At any rate, Mary, the instructor, told us to set an intention for the class, and suggested the following one: “Take a little bit of today for yourself.” The words have echoed through my head since. It was a day where I was feeling particularly downbeat. My body was sore from what felt like weeks of moving and unboxing and reboxing, all with mini on my hip or Tilly pulling at the leash. I had come to feel as though the only time I was truly able to breathe was while in the shower or for the twenty minutes or so I was awake and in bed, when I knew mini would be asleep until at least 3 a.m., and I could choose to either read for a few minutes or putz around on my phone. I know this sounds ridiculous. Of course I can find more time for myself, and I don’t want to sound like a martyr or anything because I realize that the kinds of things I’ve been preoccupied with are not particularly difficult or taxing. Hell, they’re even kind of fun: organizing closets and unpacking boxes and taking mini to yoga and so forth. But Mr. Magpie said it best when he was asked what it’s been like to be a new dad. He raved about it and then said, “But, let’s be clear: your time is never your own again.” And truer words were never spoken. Even when mini is asleep, you’re operating on borrowed time: she might wake up any minute. You can’t tell a baby, “Hey, give me 10 minutes, OK?” or “Wait, I just need to run to the bathroom for a second — hang in there!” I mean, you can, of course, but sitting down to anything is likely to be interrupted.
Anyway, hearing Mary tell us to intentionally take a little bit of the day for ourselves meant a lot to me. It meant that at mini’s next nap, instead of rushing to wash the bottles and clean the high chair and fold the laundry, I sat down and called my mom. And in the mornings, I lay in bed for a few minutes longer than I should and listen to Mr. Magpie chatting with mini in the front room and let the smell of coffee brewing wash over me and just breathe for a few minutes.
It’s done wonders for me, and it’s almost as if I needed her to authorize me to do so.
Take a little bit of today for yourself, magpies!
#Shopaholic: Wine Glass Rack
+This is insane, but our champagne flutes do not fit into ANY of the cabinets in our new house. They’re too tall. And there’s no way to adjust the shelves in a way that makes sense so that they do. So, I’m going to be ordering this free-standing rack, which is just about the chic-est one I could find.
+The ultra-trendy Simon Miller bag is on sale in select colors!
+Just about the cutest baby sweater ever.
+A great and useful way to keep your coffee beans fresh.
+Ultra chic winter boot at a good pricepoint.
+A great standby for more casual holiday occasions.
so here is my take on NYers (I grew up in the suburbs to outer borough parents): when we aren’t rushing somewhere, we love to chat and are nosy (in a good way). Even a shared eyeroll can lead to a nice conversation. Many years ago in Disney World, this is exactly what a cast member confirmed to us as well–we are just open and friendly and like to talk. The rap we get about not being friendly is undeserved, it just means you are talking to us when we are trying to get somewhere while about a million other people are trying to get somewhere at the same time.
100% agree with this! I find there are lots of moments of neighborly bonding along the lines you’ve mentioned. Even the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle, which could be likened at 5 PM on a Monday evening to the seventh layer of hell, has had its fair share of neighborly interactions, often on the topic of the idiosyncratic checkout line situation (colors and numbers and all that jazz)!