Figuring out the main room

Thank heavens for moving boxes

We’ve mentioned before that the main room - kitchen/dining room/living room - is a challenge to me. I’m not into interior design. Well, of furniture. I’ve laid out plenty of kitchens and one kick butt bathroom that never failed to wow. But furniture? I dunno. Toss a couch on a wall in the living room, put a table in the middle of the dining room, and call it a day. That’s not really an option here, with the lack of defined spaces.

First off, we have many needs from this area:

• a place for the two of us to eat

• a dining table for as many as 12

• space for another dining table - either attached or adjacent to the big dining table

• desks for both of us, hopefully using the view

• a relaxing space that, again, uses the view

• a space for a party/socializing from a group of 4 to 18 (or, honestly, more)

• space for three tables for board game nights

• room for life groups

• cooking

• baking

I *think* I’ve covered it all. We started with a folding table that we knew we would use later for board game nights if nothing else. We had a folding stool. We nabbed two Pöang chairs from IKEA and an office chair I’m fond of. Moving boxes made great side tables.

Now we just had to figure out where to put everything. The one-wall kitchen was driving me nuts. This type of kitchen layout break the most basic of kitchen design rules: The Work Triangle. Can’t have a triangle if you only have one side! So my first thought was an island. Add an island, gain both a triangle and desperately needed bottom cabinet storage! Bam!

So I grabbed some empty moving boxes and laid them out. Leaving 3’ between the island the kitchen for the aisle, and figuring minimum 2’ wide…. And a table, and a couch….

The two windows to the right are the front windows with the view.

Turns out, we simply didn’t have space for the island. Instead, some of the storage functions got off-loaded into a new, tall and narrow cabinet in the window nook by the kitchen, and the table would be near enough to the kitchen that it could be used as the countertop surface! A win-win!

See the light wood tall cabinet next to the big window? That holds a lot of stuff that would have ordinarily been in base cabinets.

What a neat idea! Well, because the table moves into the middle of the room, we don’t have a spot for the tv anymore. So the 2nd bedroom, that we’ve taken to calling the Segundo, has changed into the tv/meditation/exercise room. But that’s not a problem. Kinda cozy.

Well, actually, there was a problem. Those lovely two windows with a view? Nothing is really looking out of them. This is a lesson in how not to take advantage of your greatest asset.

Will layout #3 be the winner? Both of us, working on laptops, side by side, so we can look out the windows from the back wall. In front of that, the seating area. Table and couch will be on wheels so we can move it however we want for whichever configuration best fits our needs of the moment. We lived with this arrangement long enough that it was finally time to *gasp* buy a table.

The table I wanted was one that would be the most flexible (yup, there’s that theme again). After much searching I found one that extends from 200 cm to 290 cm (6.5 -9.5’)! That should tell us if we’re on the right track.

—Gilligan’s Isle style segue into 3 weeks later —

Finally, at long last, our table arrived. The usual shenanigans ensued. Mr. Grumpy Delivery Person Who Does Not Speak Any English called to yell at me. I followed him down our narrow street. Mr. Easy Going Delivery Person waiting at the van explained that their van could not make the turn that begins our street. Of course not. When I’m in a small Bolt it’s hair-raising. I explained there are several other roads that intersect with our street and and some of them are much better for turning. I could show him…. Nah, he says, we’ll just bring it to you on a dolly. Mr. Grumpy nearly explodes. Drags Mr. Easy down to show him how far our building is. Mr. Easy says, no problem. Grumbling and cheerful, we return to the van. They cut my table from the pallet. (Pallet?) I am told to go down and stop traffic. That’s right. Send the person with the least Portuguese to stop traffic without being able to explain why or how to reroute. Fortunately, there was no traffic to stop. At last, the table is in the building. They bring it as far as the elevator…. and leave. No problem, we’ll just put it in the elevat… *sigh* Of course it is too large for our tiny elevator.

In retrospect, it would have been better to offer them an incentive, or to wander down to the nearby construction site, and attempt to hire someone(s) to help us. Instead, we muscled it up the stairs. Personally, I consider it a good thing that 3 of the 4 corners of the table are now damaged. You know how the first ding on your new car is the worst? Try keeping a picky table spotless and water-ring free when you a complete klutz, and forgetful to boot. Now the pressure is off!

This is the worst corner. Not so bad, eh?

The new table is fine. It’s not like it’s gorgeous or anything. But it is hard to get gorgeous wood with an extension table. And then you’d have to be careful of it, and as previously demonstrated, that is not my interest. My interest? It’s exactly the right size, extends like crazy, and is light colored.

Now that the table was here, we could match the rest of the pieces. After I spent weeks looking at and imagining couches and chairs both in person (IKEA, Conforama - an IKEA like competitor, JOM - another IKEA like competitor, and tons of little furniture shops both fancy and not so) and online (you name it - if it’s in the EU and therefore doesn’t require the item to go through customs, I’ve been there), and repeatedly thinking about taking a trip to Paços de Ferreira, Portugal’s furniture capital, we ended up at IKEA. A longer version of our blue couch above which now lives in Segundo, and two new chairs later, we’re almost set. A couple of kick-butt side tables are on their way, as is a cushion for the tiny window seat we’ve made with an IKEA Kallax 1x2 opposite of the tall cabinet.

So, we’re all set. Almost. What Scott doesn’t know is that the two IKEA Pöang chairs in the far corner? Down the road they will be finding new homes. They just don’t fit the new look. Shhh…. don’t tell him, k?

It’s a Josie-approved couch.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Amy (& Scott, whose main contribution has been “if you like, I’m sure I will”)