My brother and his family from Germany came to visit and we used to spend about 4 weeks together each summer when they would visit and stay with us at our old house. Our kids haven’t seen much of them, so, of course, we asked them to come with their partners for the weekend. My kids and the Germans also haven’t seen our dear friends from Atlanta in a WHILE, so we invited them too, which made us a group of 13 people.
Our dining table sits 10 at the absolute maximum, so I needed to figure out a way to get 13 people seated all together in our house. So, here’s what I did:
Our table is 42″ wide, so I went to Home Depot to have them cut a piece of 3/4″ cabinet plywood to 42″ x 60″ to make an extension for the table. I marked 9″ in from each side so I could see where the 24″ wide by 48″ long folding table would go.Then I stapled double sided heavy duty velcro tape between the two lines.I set up the table and used the velcro to attach the plywood to the table.I ended up having to move the sofa table into a bedroom and squeezing the living room down by about 3 feet to get everything in and have room to walk through.I covered the “table” with white banquet cloths from Pottery Barn.Then I topped those with blue and white checked cloths because I have a ton of blue and white checked napkins.Then I started setting the table with yellow Fiestaware, because I have enough for 12 people which is how many people we had for dinner on Saturday night.I added some small flowers that I bought at Trader Joe’s and zinnias from my garden. We used one of the benches from our front porch for the left side of the table. We were able to seat everyone comfortably, even when we had 13 people at the table at the same time.
It was the BEST weekend I have had a in LONG time, even though getting ready for it was some work. I have tucked my table extension away for future use.
Cathy At Home on the River 