<p>Hmmm… Christmas centerpiece (18" decorated boxwood tree), 4 candlesticks with half- used candles, a laundry basket, 3 platters, and the file box from my neighborhood association. (I’m the secretary.)</p>
<p>This is cracking me up. </p>
<p>My dining room table is covered with Medical supplies. H had another surgery in January -a visiting nurse comes every few days so I just leave everything she needs right there. Every conceivable wound care / ostomy supply you can think of is bins on my table. How nice.</p>
<p>Oh, and my laptop on one end, and a leftover Christmas gift basket.</p>
<p>A tall vase filled with some sort of long grass with small purple flowers, a crazy quilt in progress, my silk thread/needle case, an embroidery book, a thread case, a basket for holding cut threads, and a bowl of camellias on top of a black place mat.</p>
<p>A really striking tablecloth in silver with darker silver thread shaped like curlicues, and a glass and chrome candelabra.</p>
<p>A table runner.</p>
<p>My last house the DR was the dumping grounds for everything but the kitchen sink and I hated it. I have an office now. S3 has taken over my office at my request because he falls asleep doing hw at the desk in his room…Jr year is hell, we all know it.</p>
<p>Right now uncharacteristically there is one other item on the DR table, two sets of mammogram and sonogram films to take to the surgeon on Friday, so they won’t get misplaced. Normally they would be on my desk, but S3 lives there now.</p>
<p>Like abasket I could totally live without my DR and hope to have a plan in our retirement home that maximizes space in the kitchen and great room. For now, I like having it clean after so many years of looking at piles. If I didn’t have an office I don’t know that I’d be able to pull it off.</p>
<p>Right now it’s fairly uncluttered. It has a kleenex box and napkin holder, both stocked, an empty fruit bowl, and various implements of DH’s work-at-home projects – pen, stapler, white-out pen, empty drinking glass. But that’s only because D isn’t home. When she is, you can’t see the surface; she drops EVERYTHING there.</p>
<p>Well, since we don’t dine on it…</p>
<p>Small wood table with drop leaves that seats 4 or 6, pushed against a wall in the room that now houses the piano. D16 uses it sometimes for homework. Candlestick lamp, box of shoes to be returned, jigsaw puzzle box.</p>
<p>If my elderly mother ever has to move in with me, it can easily convert to a bedroom with the addition of an armoire.</p>
<p>A large white decorative soup tureen that we inherited from H’s grandmother when she passed away. That’s it. I have a bonnet cabinet that has silver and china and crystal pieces, but nothing else on the table itself. I will put a decorative table runner on it during the holidays.</p>
<p>Like Steve, it’s the first room you see when you come in the front door so it stays pretty clean. Table cloth and some candles. We eat on it every couple of weeks and I do like to have a big space for sit down dinner parties. During Christmas card writing time and tax time, it becomes a work table; nice to spread out.</p>
<p>decorative bowl - that is all.</p>
<p>A table runner and a blown glass urn/vase.</p>
<p>It is the one major flat area that is usually clutter-free</p>
<p>We’re boring. We only use our dining table for dining. Currently has a table runner and two large candlestick holders w/candle.</p>
<p>Right now it just has a runner, centerpiece and a couple of crystal antique candlesticks. If I’m doing any kind of crafting project, it is a HUGE table, so that’s my “go to” spot because we only use it for special occasions, so I can leave it all out without it being in the way… much to my H’s chagrin. ;)</p>
<p>Tablecloth, two silver candle holders, four crystal candlesticks (Waterford Lismore), Steuben bowl (dead center…filled with Murano glass stuff), and an odd napkin from a dinner party last weekend)</p>
<p>Large art glass vase filled with gold orbs.</p>
<p>This is fun!</p>
<p>A white tablecloth from Damascus
A smaller blue and white square table cloth from Iran over that
Two iron candlesticks (2 candles each)
A “spaulted maple” bowl from the mountains of Virginia that I bought the weekend my daughter got married
Two cloth shopping bags
My notebooks for my Italian class this morning
My list of books to look for at the library
An orange pen</p>
<p>The last four on the list don’t live there, but it’s the last flat surface on the way out the door!</p>
<p>Petco rewards application, a diagram of my husband’s recent office reorganization, a year-end investment statement, a binder with son’s homework from last semester (shouldn’t this have gone back to school with him?), a ukelele, a book of ukelele music, a pen, a roll of wrapping paper (non-Christmas), four glass icicles, a pocket knife, an adjustable clamp, a roll of electrical tape, a bolt, a tangled mess of three sets of earbuds, a jack-knife, one sock, my son’s watch, a folded paper bag, a book on bow-making, a book called BARK, an L.L. Bean Catalog, a Browning catalog, a Kimber catalog, a Sharpie, a binder clip, a tiny pencil sharpener, a shoelace, a book on whitetail deer hunting, a book called THE TOOLS THAT BUILT AMERICA, and a school calendar.</p>
<p>There are only five items that were not left behind by my son. We miss him, so maybe that’s why we leave it all there for months! Yes, we are empty-nesters.</p>
<p>Oh, and, underneath is a crewel table-runner with a design of oak leaves and acorns. :)</p>
<p>A decorative bowl - meant to be the only thing on the table.
Completed puzzle - finished 2 weeks age when D was still home from school. Maybe not put away yet cause I miss her?
Box for said puzzle.
Bunch of tchotchkes from living room end tables that we’re getting rid of - the tables, I mean - I haven’t figured out where tchotchkes are going and the dining room table was available ;)</p>
<p>I have a runner that a bought just before Christmas this year. It still looks good - not too Christmasy, so I think I’ll keep it on until the end of March. It’s a French country look - dark green and red plaid, but with tans and brown. It has a burlap border all around. Handmade and kind of quaint. Also have an ivory china three tiered etagere, and two large brass candelabra. The extra leaf from Christmas is still there, so the table is quite long. My dining room is not a pass through, so no one ever goes in there unless they need to. Just as well for me, because it stays neat. My kitchen table IS the dumping ground for everything. Right now it has an angel vine topiary, several textbooks, and a large radio controlled helocopter.</p>