Saving Space with a Drop Leaf Table
Over the past fifty years rooms have become smaller in size. This reduction in room size has brought a resurgence of the drop leaf table onto the furniture market.
During the earliest of colonial times the drop leaf table was a very common piece of furniture. Rooms were small and people moved from place to place as our nation grew. During the 1800′s houses were large with very large rooms. Drop leaf tables lost their appeal until the 1940′s. Following the war years when Americans first adopted the idea of everyone owning a home, rooms once again began to diminish in size. During the late 1940′s and early 1950′s drop leaf tables came back into favor. Most were reproductions of earlier styles.
During the last half of the twentieth century Queen Anne style tables with leaves that could be inserted into the center of the table became the first choice for dining rooms across the nation. It seemed vital that every home have a formal dining room and a fully opened table centered with dining chairs surrounding it.
Recently, more and more of us have down-sized, moving into smaller homes and apartments. In many cases the formal dining room has been omitted. Yet, families still need a dining area that will seat the entire family, especially during the holiday season. For that reason drop leaf tables have made a comeback.
The benefit of a drop leaf table is that it often only occupies approximately a third of its total opened size when the leaves are not raised. These tables will fit against a wall leaving plenty of walk space throughout the room, often giving the room the appearance of being larger than it is. Yet, when the family arrives for the formal dinner, it takes very little effort to slide the table into the middle of the dining area and raise the leaves, creating a full size dining table.
Additionally, for those who prefer to eat in a designated area of the kitchen, the drop leaf table is the perfect breakfast table.
One of the real advantages of shopping for drop leaf tables today is that the market is full of used drop leaf tables that are in excellent shape. These tables can most often be located at auction house or estate sales. In fact, most of the older tables are of a better quality, being constructed of solid hard woods unlike many of the newer tables in retail stores.
For the home with a smaller dining room, one should consider purchasing a drop leaf table as it will save space when not in use. When it is time to raise the leaves for the family dinner, the family will be quite pleased to discover that they have a full size dining room table.
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