New Furniture

Two years ago this month, Graham and I began the task of registering for our upcoming wedding. His godmother was throwing us an early shower, almost 6 months before our wedding, and invites were going out. We registered quickly at Bed, Bath, and Beyond just to cross something off our list. Our registry was essentially all kitchen and bath items because we were still apartment hunting and figured that even if we didn't find a place right away it'd be stocked with some essentials. We registered for china out of a book and when we saw it in person we didn't like it at all. Oh goody! Now we got to go to a store with china and pick out a pattern in person! Joy of joys.

I wrongly assumed that once we had to pick another china pattern that Graham would toss the gun to me and say, "Have fun! I'll be in the car." I was really taken back when Graham insisted on having a say in our china. It turned out that picking out china was one of the more time-consuming tasks; our tastes just weren't matching up. Some of my favorites were too floral for Graham and some of his favorites were too plain for me. Eventually we stumbled upon our china and found that it was a good compromise for us. It's not overly feminine and it's just decorative enough that it doesn't look and feel like fancier 'everyday' dishes.

We got plenty of china--more than we registered for, in fact! Not that we're complaining--the way I drop things and stumble around, having those extra place settings will certainly come in handy someday. When we got it, we were so happy, but we didn't have anywhere to put it all. Each piece stayed in the box it came in for over a year because we were afraid of it breaking. Eventually we got around to talking about actually getting a cabinet to store it all and last weekend we drove out to Darvin in Orland Park to look. We ended up really liking two different cabinets and decided to bite the bullet and purchase one. It arrived on Friday and naturally I had to take some pictures (I take photos of everything):

China cabinet shortly after arrival, empty.

China cabinet filled, cleaned, and ready to go.

Close up of glass detail and china.

I'm so excited to finally have it. It feels like we've got our first piece of 'grown up' furniture now. The glass detail is my favorite part. We're hoping that because of the color of the wood and the style of the hardware that when we're ready to purchase a dining room set that we won't have a hard time trying to match it. As long as we get pretty close, we're good! And, I'm glad that we finally have a place to store and display everything; we don't have to worry about a box crashing to the ground anymore!