Road trips and dining room tables

What, those two things don't automatically go together in your mind? Just us? Haha.

I gave a talk yesterday morning at a conference way up north. (Being in Michigan, I have a state-mandated requirement to illustrate this by showing you my hand and pointing to my middle finger middle knuckle.) Brandon came along, and since we were kinda close to Traverse City (pinky fingernail... "close" was relative), we thought we'd head over there to check out dining room tables at Woodland Creek Furniture. I mentioned them in a previous post about our ongoing quest to be real grown-ups with dining room furniture. Specifically, I'd seen this barn wood farmhouse table that I was dying to check out in person.

(Photo from Woodland Creek Furniture)

Well we did check it out, and unfortunately I have to say... I wasn't in love. In person it is MUCH more rustic than it looks here - which maybe I should have guessed from the rest of the Woodland Creek website (seriously, check it out). They have very neat stuff, but it's much more log-cabin than our style, which definitely blends rustic with some more contemporary elements. I just wasn't sure that it would work with some of the other things we have going on in the space. </pretendingtobeaninteriordesigner>

Anyway, happily,Woodland Creek has an associated company/showroom for us non-log-cabin-dwellers. Hooray! It is called Ur Houzz and it was full of many things I wanted to buy. There were two potential tables, and I should have taken photos because I can't find a good representative photo on their site. The first one was another farmhouse style, made from reclaimed wood, and painted with a distressed finish (in whatever color you want!). This is the top, but I'd just get simple square legs instead of the trellis style:

(Photo from Ur Houzz)

Actually now that I look at that again, it may not really be the same at all - because I think the ones we saw had much wider planks on top. Blog fail! Anyway, this of course set my head to spinning about colors... I hadn't even considered a painted table as a possibility, but these were really beautiful. I'm pretty sure I woke up out of a dead sleep on the way home, snapped my head around to look all bug-eyed at Brandon (who was driving), and said "OMIGOD THE TABLE COULD BE PLUM." To Brandon's credit, he kept driving and didn't look at me like I was a psychopath.

The other possibility - which has been floating around in our heads since the beginning - would be a slab table. I just think these are ridiculously gorgeous. My main concern is that we already have so many different types of wood going on, with the floor, beams, counter... would it be too much? Oh also they are like a million dollars.

(Photo from Ur Houzz)

But seriously.

And just to add to the confusion, here is one additional possibility that my BFF Craig found for me on his list. This is an unfinished farmhouse table made by Amish Chic Furniture (I know, awesome).

(From the Amish Chic Furniture Photobucket site)

This particular one is sold, but they can build another one in a couple weeks and finish it however we'd want - and it is significantly less $$$ than any of the other options. In a sad little twist, their warehouse is about two and a half hours away from here in a town we drove through yesterday. But of course we didn't know that at the time. Sigh.

Here are a couple more photos of their tables that other people have bought - a natural finish, and a darker stain.

(Both photos from the Amish Chic Furniture Photobucket site.)

Super pretty, right? Not reclaimed wood (at least I don't think so), but local, so that's a plus.

I am still thinking that in any case I'd like to get a bench for one side, and then Parsons chairs for the other side and the ends. I'm still in love with these, but trying to decide on a table before I commit to ordering them...

(Photo from Overstock.com)

So what do you guys think? Painted farmhouse table? Or a dark stain to match the beams, counter, and chair legs? Or scrap the farmhouse table altogether and go with a slab? Decisions! As a reminder, here's what we're working with now... so any of these would be an exponential improvement.