January: The ongoing quest for surface area

I tend to keep all my houseplants in two rooms of the house because they have the best light and I'm more likely to take good care of them if I don't have to walk a mile to water them all. Thus there are houseplants crammed onto every available surface in my dining room and the-room-that-we-used-to-call-the-breakfast-nook (now called the plant room). I've resisted the urge to cover the dining table itself with plants although sometimes one or two or five find their way there, "temporarily," and then end up on the floor if we want to do something crazy like eat at the table. (The breakfast nook table hasn't been breakfastable in about five years and we've long since given up on it.) I spend a lot of time searching for solutions to my ongoing space problem. Last week I ordered two plant stands that match the dining room furniture perfectly, and tonight I put them together all by my little self.

"But that's only two more square feet!" my readers protest. Never fear, I have a plan! I am going to scare up a nice oak board or maybe order a piece of glass to make a table top and turn these two stands into a 4.5-foot wide console table. I am excited about the prospect of displaying a photo or even un objet d'art. Or maybe I'll go plant shopping and fill the new table from end to end and find myself back where I started. This is of course according to the houseplant corollary to Parkinson's Law: The number of houseplants increases to match the amount of available surface area in the house.