With What You Have | 90

Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Join me in the comments and share what you’ve done with what you have.

I began collecting pieces before I knew what they would become. The chairs were first. Vintage, painted in a pale yellow. Bistro style, light weight wooden folding chairs. In my imagination, I could see them paired in a spot in the garden. A place to land for a breather during a weeding session, or a place to sit with a cup of tea in the golden morning sun.

That was years ago. I kept the chairs tucked away, waiting for the right place for them to be.

Collecting pieces.

The marble table top was once part of a Marketplace find - a coffee table I found just last year. Knowing I wouldn’t use it as such, though, I discarded the legs, and squirreled the top away.

Collecting pieces.

Then we moved here. And in a heap of tangled, overgrown grass and debris near the house last fall, I found an old metal table base, simple in form, beautifully rusted and aged by years in the elements. I snatched it from the pile destined for the dump.

Collecting pieces.

In the bowl of summer’s heat last month, when we’d escaped, once again, with our dinners in hand to the shade of the Adirondack chairs on the east side patio, balancing our plates on our laps to eat, I suddenly knew I was more than ready for our al fresco dining to upgrade to a table. I may have even said it out loud.

And with those words, manifestation came. I suddenly realized I already had everything I needed to create what I was longing for.

In the coming days, I pulled the chairs from storage, wiped them down, scraped off the peeling paint, gave them a light sanding, and applied a couple nourishing coats of Osmo wood wax. I then placed them on either side of the newly created dining table with its marble top and aged pedestal base.

Well, how about that? Here we are, with a dining set ready to hold meals for us on the east side patio. Collected pieces manifested into what we needed most.

Do what you can with what you have.