My iPhone wrote this post

I like to think that my particular blogging forte is Deep Thoughts on Shallow Subjects, but I'm a little short on fashion and style thoughts these days. (This will no doubt please the two or three weirdos readers who would rather hear about my life.) Therefore, the following is a version of My Life in Pictures. With commentary. And a minimum of whining.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Buxom and I drove out to Hancock, New York, to watch our kids in a production of Les Miserables.

Here they are being peasants. Miss Buxom's cheeks are extremely red, partly because of the lavish way I applied Chanel's Rouge (from the Fall 2011 Byzantine collection.) But also because she was coming down with walking pneumonia.

After two days of driving from New York, we were greeted by the news that our house, which had been full of painters for five days, was going to be full of painters for Quite a While Longer. The painting, it took much time. The patching, it went on for many days. Only to be followed by the sanding, and the depositing of lavish amounts of plaster dust.

Please notice the lovely soft celadon/light avocado green in my dining room. Also note the Chinoiserie curtains. (Honestly, someone with such Old Lady taste in interior decorating should shut her pie hole about fashion, don't you agree?)

See the trim over the sideboard? It used to be two asymmetrical white rectangles. I asked the painter to make it one big rectangle. Now I can hang art. Or a mirror. Or sconces! Maybe all three! What joy.

Wow, I really need to polish those candlesticks. And put everything back where it belongs.

Study in chocolate

Mr. Buxom's study used to have navy blue wallpaper with a pattern of stars. Now it's painted chocolate brown. I hope bird approves, as Mr. Buxom's study doubles as bird's guest quarters. Please note the dramatic effect of the super dark walls only partially illuminated by the afternoon sun. That, my friends, is Style.

OK, now we're up to a week ago.

On our way to take Miss Buxom to the doctor to hear the bad news about the walking pneumonia (which I've decided to call La Pneumonie Marchante out of free-floating Francophilia, and because she contracted it while she was being a French Peasant, and also because the French pronounce the "P" in "Pneumonie," which amuses me to no end) we discovered that the previous evening's torrential rain storms had caused flooding in my basement. And some destruction of drywall and such.

So. Disease, dust, disaster, distruction ... somehow I'm not doing a lot of shopping.

Thank goodness I'm still in deep, deep love with the bag I bought last April.

I've also fallen down on the grooming front. 

Faux Fuschia, please note that it's not chipped, per se. But it's still revolting.

Ooh-la-la! Those nails are misérables! I desperately need a new Shellac manicure. I've put  off my re-Shellacing due to zee Puh-nee-mo-nie, the painting, and the flooding, but I'll be dealing with it very, very soon.

Because? On Wednesday, we're flying to London.

p.s. The house is still at sixes and sevens, but Miss Buxom is just fine.

Just like blackbird, I like to force the internet to go shopping with me.

Unlike blackbird, I'm too lazy to go out looking for a new kitchen table in real life, because that would involve actually getting off my ass and going to a furniture store. In fact, several furniture stores.

And I can't even begin to describe how unattractive a prospect that appears to be on a cold (what else is new) snowy (what, again?) Saturday afternoon.

And so, I reach for my friend, the internet.

Here's the situation. What I have now: the kitchen table that came with the house. It's a white formica rectangle measuring 54 inches by 40 inches, or four and a half feet by 3 and a half feet. This size is perfect for our little family dinners a quatre, doing homework (sometimes both kids at once) and reading the newspaper while I breakfast in solitary splendor.

This table also fits the somewhat narrow and radiator-bedecked end of my kitchen. Which used to look like this



and now looks more like this


Except with the plastic wrap off and the same old furniture back in place.

Here's a close-up of what I'm dealing with now.
As you can see, one end of the table is under the window and provides a handy spot for stashing salt and pepper shakers, Japanese seaweed sprinkles for my rice, a poinsettia that refuses to die even though it's almost Easter, and napkins.

What I have in mind is a new table, wooden, roughly the same size, pedestal based (because the radiators pretty much preclude a four-legged table) with a distressed black finish. Black will go with the antique wrought iron chandelier, dark granite counters, and my newer and slightly less Victoria-magazine-influenced aesthetic. (Meaning it doesn't have to be pretty. Or cute. Or retro.)

Black wood would also keep me from spending half my life Windex-ing tea stains off white formica. Because in case anyone asks, the question: "Why did you never finish your doctoral dissertation?" could just as easily be answered by the phrase "I was too busy trying to keep my white kitchen table clean."¹

OK! Ready to help me buy a table? Great. Shall we sort by price? Very well.

This one is from Caroline Cottage. I found it on Amazon.

It sells for $199. Unfortunately, the ratings for this company are pretty bad. Apparently a few people got the base without the top, or the top showed up broken. And it's too small--only 42 inches around.

Still .. $199! At that price my daughter could fingerpaint her food with ketchup, instead of merely eking it out in a miserly fashion, a teaspoon here, a teaspoon there.

This one is only $200 from Amazon. But again, it's only 42 inches around.


I like the chunkier base. It seems less tippable. But forget it! It's too small.

This one

is 48 inches around, costs $799, includes the chairs, and has free shipping. Unfortunately I hate the combination of black and brown and those chair seats? Would be covered with ketchup within seconds.

Of course I can't remember where this one came from. Or how much it cost.

And of course, I kind of like it. These chair seats wouldn't get trashed, and I like the base on this one the best. There is no way my kids would manage to tip it over.

I'll have to look around and find it again.

This design is available from a few different retailers, and the price ranges from $1200 to $1359. The chair they're showing isn't the only choice, which is a good thing, because it's trying very hard to look hip.







This is the other chair.


Which I hate less than the hip one.

I hate this set

And only partly because it's designed by Kathy Ireland and costs $1,069.00. Didn't she used to do Sports Illustrated bathing suit issue covers?

It'll be a cold day in hell when a pair of breast implants designs my kitchen table.

¹ Actually, it was indolence that did me in. That and the knowledge that I didn't, in fact, want to teach college students. Or try to get tenure.