Ann is so sweet. She knew that we were looking for a kitchen table and found one for us in the dumpster of her apartment complex. It had white legs and a light wood top. Joey and I cleaned it with lots of bleach then painted it black and left the white tile in the center. Joey's mom happened to be getting rid of her black kitchen chairs and we snagged them. The place mats are sample material from my friend Alison who used to work at an upholstery factory (and I have tons more in different colors and patterns too). The total cost: 13 dollars for painting supplies!
We also found a solution for our lack of counter space and lack of dinero to buy an island or butcher block ( the least expensive ones we could find were still over a hundred dollars).
We bought two ikea coffee tables and stacked them, not bad for 40 bucks!:
