Christmas Makeover

I bought Hay a set of golden wings yesterday.

Two, 3 foot, antique, plaster wings for my angel, which have been re-gilded. We thought they'd look nice in the AirBnB extension and add to the overall feeling of opulence Hay created there. I've no idea what they came off, but they might have been from an old church that was being demolished. They look Victorian.

We also decided to get a replacement dining table at the weekend that we obtained from Facebook Market for a steal at a couple of hundred quid. The old one simply takes up too much space that could be devoted to other furniture, so we got an antwacky, circular, yew table with 2 extending leaves that take it to one that more than adequately seats 8. 

Our dining room is part of our living room, the whole being a 10m long and 5m wide open space. We decided on this open plan configuration to give an increased impression of space, which it certainly does. However, half of it is taken up with a huge, 8 seater dining table that's only ever used at Christmas and when we have guests, which isn't that frequent. It does collapse, but only to a 6 seater, which still takes up an inordinate amount of room that could otherwise be utilised.

The yew table, with the leaves removed, takes up a fraction of the space of the old table, but is longer than our old table when fully extended, meaning we can use more of the space for the living room, or simply to increase the walking area. When extended fully, there are 4 hidden legs that drop down to provide extra stability, which is rather neat. There's no maker's mark, but it is certainly a quality piece and redolent of something Heal's would have sold years ago.

The hard decision now is whether to use the chairs that came with the table or a mixture of some of our existing ones with a few of the replacements. Both are nice, but we do like mixing stuff for a more quirky effect. I would probably recover the replacement ones in fabric (they're currently in green leather), given that's what I did to great effect with the old ones.

Another bit of makeover will be getting rid of a large, hideous, triple door cupboard that you can see on the upper left of the photo of the new dining table, and having a bespoke cupboard built in, which will extend from the kitchen, round a corner and into the dining area. The rather nifty idea I came up with is incorporating the leaves from the dining table into a desk that extends from the end of the cupboard and into the the dining area for Hay to sit at for work. It solves two problems simultaneously - where to store the dining table leaves when not in use (which will be the vast majority of the time), and provide Hay with a proper desk (she currently uses the kitchen island as her desk). It will also harmonise the furniture within the dining area. This modification won't be made till after New Year, as our tame furniture maker is busy till then.