Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Tables

[Tim Mensch (tim-coho-l]

Joani Blank wrote:
> ...the best common house tables:
>
> 2.  Have no more than two people seated on one straight side.  If the 
> long sides of the table can be bowed (as in the boat shaped suggested 
> by one contributor here), that would be very cool, as three or four 
> people can sit along a long side, as all can readily see one another 
> without anyone having to lean forward or pull chair or self 
> back.  But, needless to say, commercially made tables are virtually 
> never this shape.
Sorry Joani, but I have to disagree with the concept of tables that seat 
at a maximum six people, at least when considering communities with 
larger families. At least the last time I was there, Swan's didn't have 
any large family groups (with children of an age that they still 
typically need to sit with parents), so I can understand your point of 
view with regards to communities with similar makeups, but if we had 
tables that sat just six people, my family would never be able to sit 
with even one other family of four (there are three of us now), and 
after our next child (expected in April) gets big enough, we'd be 
restricted sitting only with couples without children, or whose children 
had decided to (and were old enough to) sit elsewhere.

At Wild Sage, we've actually found it difficult to connect with others 
because the tables are smaller than the tables were at Pleasant Hill 
Cohousing (in CA), where we lived before. At PHCH, where they had long 
"cafeteria"-style tables, there were always plenty of people sitting 
with us, and we very quickly got to know most of the community. The 
tables were narrow enough that I found it easy to follow conversations, 
and large enough that a wide selection of people would be able to sit 
down with us. If we'd been here (at Wild Sage) since the beginning, that 
may not have mattered as much, but as a new family trying to integrate, 
it's been harder to meet or connect with folks we don't know as well.

Tim

--
Tim Mensch

Currently at Wild Sage (Boulder, CO): http://www.wildsagecohousing.org

Founding member of Tumblerock, a Boulder, CO area community in its forming 
stages: http://tumblerock.org