800 Pounds of Wood

When Garity and I first married, we bought a small round dining room table for our one-bedroom apartment. This table came with a hidden leaf that folds up inside the table to comfortably seat six. After almost 11 years, we came to the realization that we simply needed a larger dining room table. Fortunately, Mexico can solve that problem if you don't mind rustic style furniture. If you are into glass tops and Scandanavian design, prepare to be disappointed.

We piled the family into the car and followed our friends up to Metepec, a small town just south of Toluca about 40 miles from Mexico City. We entered what looked like a small shack full of rustic furniture decked with wrought iron accents. Very cool stuff. Out back, they had even more items. This was their showroom of course, everything is made to order. You just show them what you want (a picture from a magazine will do fine), or pick it out from their catalog, then they make it and deliver it 10 days later.

We had a budget on this, but we wanted something that would last a long time so Garity picked out a simple but pretty table and chairs. At first we had them calculate a rectabgular table that would seat 8. That came in at about 1/4 of our budget so we made it bigger. We ended up with a table to seat 12; 11 feet by 4 feet - yes it is huge. We were still well under our budget, so we added two very large book shelves to the order. The furniture is hand made solid wood (and very substantial) using mortis and tenon as well as dovetail joints. The stuff would easily cost three times what we paid if bought stateside, and we still came in under budget - including the 12 chairs. All in all, we really got a great deal.



The furniture was delivered as promised - at 10:30 Friday night. I ran out to find them near our home because the had gotten lost. It took me several minutes to find them, and I actually drove past them twice. I was looking for a moving van, they were delivering it on an old 1/2 ton truck...your regular pick-up truck. I remembered looking at it thinking "why would anyone stack so much furniture on such a small truck?" and "that table on top is huge - wait - that's my table!"



Two men had the old pickup loaded beyond capacity. The chairs were stacked on the bottom with the bookshelves laid flat on top, then the table on top with more chairs. It was all packed very tightly and from ground to the top of the bundle was easily 8 ft. The local policeman even stopped by to help us, which was perfect timing because the four of us could barely move the table. The legs are just shy of one foot wide. They said that they needed to do this as well as make the top thicker (it is 2.5 inches thick) because of the length. It is free standing with no center support. The fact that it was driven over bad roads 40 miles away without any damage at all is a testament to how well this stuff was made. Delivery cost a whopping 400 pesos (about $28). Realizing this is what the delivery men were getting paid from, we gave them each a healthy tip as well as the cop for his help.



We got it all moved in and are enjoying the extra flat space, as well as just having a real dining room table. I don't know how we will move it when we leave because it does not disassemble, but if two men and an old pickup can do it, I'm sure that a professional moving company can manage.