I really need a pretty dining room table and I need it right the hell now!

Last year was my year to host the Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, this was also the year I didn’t have $1.03 to my name. So the first thing I did was clear out my garage of all sorts of things that have kept me from parking my car in it. Flush with cash, I headed to Trader Joe’s and shopped the ads in the local paper. I’d make everything from scratch. The food was solved, but, that still left me with seating 10 for dinner.

In the past, I’ve used a sheet of MDO plywood over my smaller dining room table; thrown a clean white sheet over the whole shootin’ match, dragged out the vintage china and silver from my mother and called it good. When I retrieved the MDO from the garage, it was looking mighty sad; depressing even. The previous uses had left it spotted and the spots showed through the table cloth. Keeping in mind the aforesaid $1.03, I couldn’t even think about buying new. I decided to cover the MDO and make the surface presentable.

The good thing about being a designer is that I’m supply saturated. I went through my plan file and found the sheets of hand-printed wrapping paper I’d bought in Florence when I took the boys to Italy after my husband died in 1996. I had two designs ~ a page from Dante’s Divine Comedy and a small block of illuminated manuscript. And, at the bottom of that drawer, I found the remaining pages of the calendar I bought from a street vendor in the Duomo square which had botanical drawings of assorted veggies. All of those elements, a sheet of black construction paper, some half empty jars of matte medium and Elmer’s glue, a paper cutter, my brayer and scissors and I was in business. 

I spent the night before cutting out all the veggies and watching old movies ~ Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House was the hit of the evening. Since I’m very fond of borders and I think checkerboard is very spunky and festive, I decided on a double row of black 3” check. The very cool thing is that the MDO has a lovely tan paper finish. So, the border was now black and tan checks. Oh yeah. When I started, I was very precise about cutting each square on the paper cutter. Cutting all those squares was an utter drag. I found myself losing the will to live. So, I decided to tear them. Nice deckled edge and a gentleness to the sizing. I laid it all out the night before and went to bed.

The next morning dawned early as it is wont to do. I decided to believe the Gourmet website about cooking the turkey at 450 degrees in record time. I made the candied yams and for fun threw in a quarter of a bottle of Apricot brandy. I threw together the pumpkin and pecan pies and made the stuffing and put them in to bake. All the while I kept looking at my dining room and the unfinished art project of a thousand pieces of paper as the time literally ticked away. 

We’d all decided that we’d gather at 7:00. At 3:00, I started gluing the hell out of the table top. The border went fairly quickly ~ though one side of the table has more squares than the other. Go figure. As I was finishing up, a few drops of water spilled on the Dante manuscript and it turned it into a wrinkled mess. Jeez. I knew I’d never be able to smooth the wrinkles out of all those sheets. Thinking “wallpaper” I decided to wet each sheet thoroughly, pre-wet the location and really dilute the glue. Worked like a charm. Smooth and tight as a drum. Did the same with the little illuminated manuscript sections. Then I scattered the veggies over the whole thing and waited for it to dry (thank God for water-based adhesives.) 

While it was drying, I threw the turkey into the oven and went out to the garden to cut an armful of ivy for the centerpiece; and using the last of the hydrangea and the last of the bronze mums put them into small Toby mugs for the buffet table. Done and into the shower. 

Was the table dry when my friends arrived? Not quite, but damn close. So, we laughed and talked and drank Prosecco until it was safe to set the table. And, those awful stains on the MDO? All those ugly stains were now lovely patina shadows coming through onto the Divine Comedy for the remarkable look of age. And, the cost of the table top? Free. 

  

Why is all of this important? I think we’re all in for very lean and difficult times. Even those of us who think Mr. Obama will, if not save us, at least be on our side know that very few of us are going to emerge out the other side of this depression unscathed. The ability to make do, to create from seemingly nothing and to be creative in surviving this mess is a skill to be nourished and embraced.