Family Meal Times: How We "Found" an Extra Couple of Family Hours Each Week

Once upon a time, I had four children under age six. My husband got off work at 5:00, and was home exactly 5 minutes later. The table would be set, the smell of delicious hot food would fill the air, and we would sit down by 5:15 to eat a hot, homemade meal.

Then the kids got older. And they jumped into sports and activities. And the priority of family dinners got shuffled around a bit. At my core, though, I really valued that family time around the table. It is something that I placed a high priority on, and something that I wanted in our lives even with the addition of sports and activities and big kid stuff. I wanted to establish a family meal time when our children were young, so that when they were old, it would still be a regular family "thing". I wanted my children to have a place where questions and conversations were natural and welcome. Sports and activities were throwing a wrench into my plans.

What took me a while to consider was that the priority was on a family meal time, not necessarily a family dinner time. Who said that meal had to be dinner? We began utilizing family breakfast or lunch times. Lunch was more natural for me as breakfast meant I had to be up extra early (uh, not happening).

Our life has been a little more full lately. We spend a lot of our time at our martial arts gym training and teaching. All four of our children, plus my husband and I take classes, putting us home later in the evening. We generally do simple meals on our later nights, but it felt so "rushed" as of late, and I really wanted to reclaim some of that family meal time. I hated rushing home, throwing food on the table, eating, and sending them off to bed.

Recently, I began to set the table for dinner early in the afternoon, before we even leave for our evening classes. A cute centerpiece, candles, dishes and cutlery, etc. Just the simple act of preparing an otherwise plain table began to draw my children to the kitchen. When we come home from the gym, we kicked our "watch tv or play until mom's done prepping dinner" habit in favor of a "sit around the table and talk together" routine. Our kitchen and dining table are connected, making it easy for me to prep food and talk with the family. I put the finishing touches and prep on dinner, my family sits at the table or helps out, and we enjoy the time together while dinner is getting ready.

This one tiny little change has given us an easy extra two hours or more of family time a week. Our dinners have been more enjoyable, our kids are staying at the table longer, and the conversations have been more relaxed. The stress of getting home late and eating quickly has mostly diminished, and we are once again enjoying our family dinners together.

It seems like something so silly and simple. And it is. But silly and simple solutions that yield positive family time are my kinda solutions.

If you are in a similar phase of life with activities or evening things that may be threatening your family meal time, I highly encourage you to think outside of the box. Is there another meal time that would work for your family? Is there a way to spend more time in the kitchen or around the table together? Dinner isn't the only opportunity for time around the table with your family. If it's a priority to you, get creative and make it happen!

DIY Kids Sized Farmhouse Table

Last year, we built ourselves this farmhouse table.  I still love it, though there are definitely things I would do differently next time.  But it’s particularly special because it’s the first big thing we ever made together. 

We are a pretty big family, considering we have four children.  Our table fits us all well, with plenty of room to spare.  And when we have just one other small family over for dinner, we have enough space at our table for everyone.  BUT, if we have another big family over (or multiple families over), we simply cannot all fit at our big farmhouse table. 

I really like our kids to dine close to us, even if they’re not at the same table.  We had a little round table, but it just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  For the full sized table we built, we used this gal's modified plans from Ana White's website (love her!).   We simply scaled down our farmhouse table measurements to make it kid-sized.  It is was so simple to just shorten all the measurements and create a "mini" farmhouse table.  

As always, I found a really cute green "oops" paint from Home Depot for just $.50!!!  I used my Valspar Antiquing Glaze from Lowe's (my absolute favorite!) to give it an older look.  I finished the green areas with low oder polyurethane (I use this kind).

The table top is chalkboard paint.  I like this kind, and it lasts through a ton of projects!  I used 2 coats of chalkboard paint.  You do not put polyurethane on top of the chalkboard paint.  You just leave it as is.  

It's such a fun table and a great way to add extra seating into our kitchen.  We use it all the time.  

It's a perfect sized table for group crafts since they don't have to reach so far across the table, and it's always fun to just draw on it with chalk.  We use it whenever we have lots of people over, and it's a great way for a bunch of kids to be able to sit together and talk while they eat.

I'm so glad we made the decision to build this table.  It was quick and easy, and a really useful piece for our family!

DIY 7-Foot Farmhouse Table

(This will be a "mini tutorial."  I suggest you follow the directions in the links provided within the blog for lumber shopping lists and specific building instructions, though I'll provide plenty of pictures of my own here, too.)

A few months ago, my husband and I decide to build ourselves a new kitchen table.  We had just recently finished our kitchen island from an armoire project and were excited to try something from scratch.  Fortunately, we agreed on what we wanted our table to look like!  

Our Pinterest search began, which is how we stumbled upon this amazing farmhouse table on Ana White's blog (be still my heart-LOVE her site).  But the plans for the table in that link were too small for what we wanted (7 feet long).  Imagine my excitement when I found this gal's modified plans for Ana White's table for 7 feet!  AND, she had great pictures that seemed easy for us to follow (we are total newbies at building from scratch).  

Even as newbies, this entire project, from start to finish, took only 1 week total.

And so, one evening while our kids were spending the night at their grandparents house, Ben and I ran to Home Depot after he did a wedding (I was big and pregnant and we were both in dressy clothes buying lumber-it was awesome).

Now, we used the plans and shopping lists from this blog to plan our lumber.  We planned our cuts to maximize our lumber usage and minimize our expenses.  There was no way we could fit these boards in our car.  And, although we have saws at home, we decided to save ourselves some time and pay to have the guys at Home Depot cut it all for us.  We had about 50 cuts, and at $.50 per cut, it totaled around $25...totally worth it!  We left the wood there, they cut it (took them an hour and a half), and we picked it up the next morning.  My advice for this is to take some time and know exactly how the cuts need to be made...they weren't as efficient with the cuts as I would have been, and I told them that at pickup when they tried to charge me for a few extra boards.  When I showed them how they should've cut them, they finished the cuts (on fresh boards as needed) without charge.

  

We bought a framing square, and I would say this is an absolutely necessary item to ensure that everything you put together is square.  Pictured above and below is the frame of the table.

  

Doesn't that look simple?  Well, it really is!

The hardest part was adding the top boards to the table.  Making sure that they were perfectly even was a little difficult.  We found it easiest to do the long boards first and the end boards last.  We started with the board in the middle, perfectly centered, and then worked around it.

Flip it over, and this is what it looks like before you add the end pieces.  Sand the edges of these boards before adding the end pieces to the table.  Center and add the end pieces.

Then, you get to sand.  And sand.  And sand.  And sand.  Sand it until it's smooth and the edges are looking good!

The bench is basically the exact same thing (here are the building plans).  But for whatever reason, ours is a little longer than the legs of the table, meaning that it doesn't slide completely under the table.  Not a big deal, but I would make it shorter next time.

  

Then it's time to finish the table.  We first covered the wood with MinWax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner.  This will help the wood to not only soak up the stain evenly, but it will also make the wood harder, which is a good thing for a kitchen table that will see a lot of use.  Once that is applied, we went straight for the stain.  I LOVE Minwax's Gel Stains, as they are super easy to use and not nearly as messy as regular stain.  It's thick.  We used rags to just rub this into the table.  We did 1 really good coat, followed by a second lighter coat.  Put it on, then rub it off after a quick wait.

Finally, once the stain was totally done, we applied the poly.  We used Varathane's No Odor Polyurethane.  We see the "fastest drying," "no odor," "interior" kind.  It is water based and dries quickly.  We did 4 coats of this stuff using little foam brushes (inexpensive and you can just throw them away after).  Put it on, let it dry, sand a little on the rough spots.  Re-apply, let it dry, sand a little on the rough spots.  Repeat until it looks and feels like you want it to.




After the final coat of poly is applied, you'll want to wait about 72 hours to really let it set before using your table for normal use.

And lastly, the chairs.  We scored on these beautiful, old chairs from Ben's mom.  They were from when Ben was little, and they were just being stored in their shed.  I love them!  I used Rust-Oleum's Paint+Primer spray in Satin "Heirloom" color.  And, apparently, I don't spray paint properly (I missed that lesson on tagging in high school).  I thought you just hold down the button and spray like crazy.  After blowing through way too many of these cans, Ben came along and showed me the nice, short spray technique.  He wins.

I sprayed my chairs out front on the lawn :)  And then, I used that same poly as on the table, except in spray paint form, to finish these chairs.

And here's the finished product:

(You can see both our table and our home-made island in this picture.)

The Cost:

In total, this table (including all paints, stains, brushes, and lumber) cost us around $175.  I was able to sell our old table for $100, and then another big toy around the house for $40, which offset my cost to just $35!!!  Not bad :)

DIY Farmhouse Table and Bench Part 1

You may have seen on the Mothering with Creativity Facebook page that my husband and I have spent the last week building ourselves a new 7' farmhouse table and matching bench.  We have now moved on to the chairs, and are almost completely done with the project!  Just in time for baby #4 to arrive!  Here's a sneak peak of the bench construction.  I will be writing a full post soon with links to tutorials we followed, as well as our tip and things we learned during the process.

Above is the frame for the bench.  Looks simple, doesn't it?  We are not expert wood-workers, and in fact this was our first "from scratch" wood project.

The kids painted rocks in the garage while we assembled the bench. 

Here's a look at the finished bench.  I am LOVING it!  


And now for the table...


Here's the finished built product:



And the almost finished, complete product:



Like I said, we are working on the chairs.  Once it's in my home and set-up, I will add part 2 to this DIY project with pictures, links, and tips.  I'll include the stains and finishing products that I used, as well, in case you want to replicate the look.

I can't believe I just built a table with my husband!  It's been such a fun project!