A Library Dinner Date on Sunday Favorites

We are still debating which old dining room table we should buy. We looked at both of them on Saturday.
(For pictures, click here and scroll to the end of that post.)

The first one is in decent shape, needs a good polish and scratch treatment, and its pedestals are really different and interesting. Love them! The finish, though, is a little reddish for my taste. The second table, the high quality Henkel Harris one, is a substantial beauty, but its tabletop needs reviving; the lacquer is crazed. Leaves and pedestals are in excellent condition. Question: do I want to fuss with refinishing a table top? Aarrgghh!!!

Plus, I've put a bid on Ebay for six dining chairs, as we will probably sell our current chairs when we sell our smaller table. We looked at the Ebay chairs on Saturday too, and they have nice patina and age and are sturdy. I bid low. We'll see what happens.

But today is Sunday, Valentine's Day, and I'm reposting a story from back in September.
And it all takes place on our dining room table . . . .

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You are invited for dinner in the Library at That Old House!

Only . . . Dinner is not really in the Library because we don't have a Library.

So what we have is our Dining Room pinch-hitting for a Library. If I were going to set a table for two in a library, it might look like this. . . .


Yesterday I moseyed on down to my daughter Anne's college, where she is in graduate school. She wrapped up her day at 5pm, and we headed off to Goodwill; Anne needed to shop for some pieces for a play she is costuming.

On the way we stopped at Dollar Tree. Need I say more?

Here, tucked at the end of our dining room table
(so you can't see the dishes waiting to be put away at the other end -- reality check!)
is a Tablescape for Two.
(Another reality check; that poor ivy plant is half dead. Ivy doesn't thrive indoors.)

We can dine by candlelight, although that

makes it hard to read the books in the library. :-)

What's in it? I popped the pieces into a mosaic.

And they are . . .
**Dollar Tree dishes; they were in the Christmas aisle, but they don't look particularly Christmas-y to me.
**Dollar tree tea light holders; I have seen these on other blogs, and I am such a copy-cat.
**The white porcelain "parakeet" I featured yesterday, a Giveaway win. Here.
**A couple of boxes that look like books.
**Dollar Tree placemats and napkin rings; I love the khaki and red together.
**T.J. Maxx bowls.
**Home Goods napkins.
**Crystal Pilseners -- can't remember where we got them, but they pre-date my dedictated thrifting days, so they may have come from (gasp!) a regular retail store.
**And my trusty century-old Georgian pattern silverplate, from Ebay.

Oh! Almost forgot. That candleholder, the one that looks like mercury glass with
a twisted glass stem? $2 at Goodwill. There were two for sale.

Ask me why I didn't take the second, and I can't give you a good answer.

That's it!

Thanks to Chari of Happy To Design
for her hosting of Sunday Favorites!

Go visit!

And Happy Valentine's Day to all!