Farmhouse Kitchen Tables-The Heart of the Farm

I love having a nosey into other people’s homes. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to have a snoop.

If there is one place in most homes which says a lot about a person though, it is the kitchen table.

You eat, drink and be merry around the kitchen table and it really is the heart of the home.

For farms though, the table has an even deeper meaning.

Tables often have a story behind them-passed down through generations of the same family or inherited from farmers who trod the same ground years ago.

They are often worn, marked and stained with the activities of years gone by.

Food is an important part of any farming family. It is the fuel and the sustenance which keeps workers going and it is often the only time a farming family will be together in that day-whether it be breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks.

Farmhouse kitchens are often open for more hours in a day than a hotel and definately longer than a cafe.

From the early breakfasts before milking or market to the warmed up dinners at midnight after baling or harvest, they really are the hub of the home.

The funny thing about farmhouse kitchen tables which, if you are not from a farming family may apaul you though is that the farmhouse kitchen table is used for a lot more than eating at.

Maybe arts and crafts, baking or even changing nappies may not seem to out of the ordinary to some.

What about butchery, hatching eggs, administering medicines to animals, business meetings and frolicking with the farmer (not me, I might add).

You see, I started thinking about the importance of kitchen tables in a farmhouse and I asked the lovely ladies in a Facebook group I am a member of-The Crazy Life of a Farmer’s Wife.

I was inundated with over 70 candid photos of what life really looks like in a farm house kitchen.

None of the contrived pictures in magazines where the oven has never been switched on and the sink is dry.

These are the coal face of real farming.

Some are tidier than others but they are real and I love them all.

There have been business meetings conducted around them, farm paper work, homework, crafts, farm diversification activities.

Not to mention the egg packing, meat cutting, cake baking, tears shed.

There are usually farm dogs under them and, in some cases, chickens nesting.

I don’t think anyone can underestimate the importance of the farmhouse kitchen table.

I love the mix of styles.

The tidy.

The lived in.

The pet sanctuary.

Whatever happens on the Farmhouse table, it really is the most important piece of furniture in the house.

If only they could talk.