Setting the table
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:50 am
I have people over for dinner around once a month and host bigger parties (birthdays etc) 2-5 times a year typically.
To this day I've been using my normal spoons, plates and cups etc, and added paper plates if we need more tableware than we have.
We have quite a lot of tableware because we kept a lot of non-mint condition stuff that we've inherited. And we have a box full of paper plates so I don't need to buy them for a few years yet. (We have difficulties throwing useful stuff away just because we have no need for them and they have no resale value.)
I wonder if renting the missing plates 2-3 times a year would be better than buying paper plates? What is the best economical and or ecological solution in your opinion? How do you deal with guests over and hosting parties?
I've actually gravitated towards splitting the parties in to multiple smaller ones. Saves me the trouble of thinking about the plates, gets me to see and actually engage with people more. And smaller parties are also easier for my introvert SO to deal with because they give SO the option to choose which guests to meet and which to avoid.
Also my kitchen tables oilcloth is soon coming to the end of its lifespan so I've been thinking of options of how to replace it. It serves to hide the rugged table below and make it easy to clean after the kids especially when they paint or do play-doh or something.
I've thought of a few solutions:
1) Obviously I could just go and by a new one, but it feels wrong thinking that I'd be just throwing money at the problem and creating plastic waste.
2) I could get a few used cotton table cloths and just wash them often. We wash linen laundry once a week so that would mean the cloth is dirty most of the time or buying something like five cloths. And it would not protect the table from wet paint. And I wonder how long the cloth would last in every day use.
3) Cotton cloth + a glass on top would protect the cloth and make it easy to clean. But acquiring a glass that size would cost a lot, and it would be huge hassle to replace it if it would brake.
4) I could paint the table to make it pretty and easy to clean to skip the whole table cloth. But that would mean stains from the paint and maybe the table lasting less long? Or maybe the increased wear on the table is not significant? And of course we'd go without a table for a few days/weeks when I'm working on it. That's a minor inconvenience.
From these the painting and doing with out the cloth seems like the best option. But am I missing something? How do you, especially people with kids, deal with your kitchen table? What's the logic behind it? How is the kitchen table part of your bigger picture?
I've been thinking about how would jacob would do it. I only remember from the book that you just shouldn't invite anyone over ever so you don't need extra tableware or pretty furniture.
Thank you for reading and I apologize for such obviously low Wheaton level question. I would very much appreciate seeing how you think about this!
To this day I've been using my normal spoons, plates and cups etc, and added paper plates if we need more tableware than we have.
We have quite a lot of tableware because we kept a lot of non-mint condition stuff that we've inherited. And we have a box full of paper plates so I don't need to buy them for a few years yet. (We have difficulties throwing useful stuff away just because we have no need for them and they have no resale value.)
I wonder if renting the missing plates 2-3 times a year would be better than buying paper plates? What is the best economical and or ecological solution in your opinion? How do you deal with guests over and hosting parties?
I've actually gravitated towards splitting the parties in to multiple smaller ones. Saves me the trouble of thinking about the plates, gets me to see and actually engage with people more. And smaller parties are also easier for my introvert SO to deal with because they give SO the option to choose which guests to meet and which to avoid.
Also my kitchen tables oilcloth is soon coming to the end of its lifespan so I've been thinking of options of how to replace it. It serves to hide the rugged table below and make it easy to clean after the kids especially when they paint or do play-doh or something.
I've thought of a few solutions:
1) Obviously I could just go and by a new one, but it feels wrong thinking that I'd be just throwing money at the problem and creating plastic waste.
2) I could get a few used cotton table cloths and just wash them often. We wash linen laundry once a week so that would mean the cloth is dirty most of the time or buying something like five cloths. And it would not protect the table from wet paint. And I wonder how long the cloth would last in every day use.
3) Cotton cloth + a glass on top would protect the cloth and make it easy to clean. But acquiring a glass that size would cost a lot, and it would be huge hassle to replace it if it would brake.
4) I could paint the table to make it pretty and easy to clean to skip the whole table cloth. But that would mean stains from the paint and maybe the table lasting less long? Or maybe the increased wear on the table is not significant? And of course we'd go without a table for a few days/weeks when I'm working on it. That's a minor inconvenience.
From these the painting and doing with out the cloth seems like the best option. But am I missing something? How do you, especially people with kids, deal with your kitchen table? What's the logic behind it? How is the kitchen table part of your bigger picture?
I've been thinking about how would jacob would do it. I only remember from the book that you just shouldn't invite anyone over ever so you don't need extra tableware or pretty furniture.
Thank you for reading and I apologize for such obviously low Wheaton level question. I would very much appreciate seeing how you think about this!