The puzzling attraction

One of the things I'm most looking forward to about moving into another home may seem strange to some. It's not more bathrooms or closets, but a place to put together jigsaw puzzles.

It wasn't always this way.

Some years ago, my husband and I impulsively bought a large antique pub table and put it in a corner of our family room. I intended to refinish it once warm weather came, but long before that, it had become our puzzle table - always covered with intricate and colorful jigsaw pieces.

Our first puzzle was a gift from my dear mother-in-law. She, like many others (see page 15), had observed that eventually most of her guests gathered around a half-finished puzzle she kept in the living room.

Before long, there was always a puzzle in our house waiting for someone to stop and figure out which pieces fit where.

But then we moved.

Our new long, narrow family room had no space for an unwieldy table, so it was consigned to the garage. We missed puzzling and occasionally discussed working out some way to get a puzzle spot set up in our new home. But it never happened.

Now we're moving again, and the first thing I noticed about our new house was the two tables in the kitchen - one the perfect size for a jigsaw puzzle.

Already I've started shopping for puzzles. Not just for us, but also for the son who rescued the oak pub table from our garage and gave it a new home.

If furniture had feelings, I think that old table would be happy to again be the center of attraction as home to a series of jigsaw puzzles.

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