So I’ve decided that I need a dining room table. I thought I could get by okay without it, but it’s so much easier to have people over when you have a place to eat, and it would be nice to have a flat surface for doing things (i.e. crafts). Also, I need a place to eat where the cats know they’re not allowed – as it is, they like to come up and sniff my food and it’s really hard to balance my plate and push cats away at the same time.

I went to Ikea yesterday with my cousin (the Atlanta store just opened a few months ago – the first in the southeast – and boy was it crowded!). I found a table there that is exactly what I’m needing – something that is small, but can open up to seat more (4 comfortably, 6 a bit tight). I definitely want to shop around some more, but at least now I have a better idea of what I want (size-wise).

So now the next question is where am I going to put a table? Before I buy anything, I need to make sure it’s going to fit into my apartment. Well I went online and found a cool program called Arrange-A-Room on the Better Homes and Gardens website. I have been playing around, and here is the look of my current apartment:

As you can see, there isn’t much room for a table. So I did some rearranging and moved my bookcase into the bedroom and came up with these two options:

So what do you think? Do they work? If you have other suggestions let me know. (If you’d like measurements please go here).

Next, table-shopping. Oh yes, and looking over my budget to figure out if I can afford a new table, with having just bought a new camera.