Form before function

We bought our apartment 4 months ago. Its much larger than any we've had before, and we are here to stay. There are plenty of empty spaces, and we have a lot of ideas of what to fill it with.

One thing we've been looking for is a cabinet for our dining room, for silver (behind glass doors), possibly our china, and cabinets underneath for table linens. We aren't looking cheap, but not really expensive either. Lumber here costs though, so its not easy to find the perfect piece.

And then comes the breakfront pictured. It belongs to my grandmother, who lives in Amherst, Mass. We could possibly bring it here on my in-laws lift (haven't spoken to them about it yet), but the question is if we want it - my grandmother would be happy to give it to us, as she is looking to pare down her own home.

But its too big for our dining room. Its 6 ft long, and our dining room doesn't have a lot of wall space - one wall is next to the circular staircase, and we already have a mirror and table there. Another wall is the sliding doors to the porch. Another wall has a window to the kitchen, and the last wall is short - it leads to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.

So it would have to go in the living room. Which is OK for the silver, possibly china... but table linens? Even behind solid doors? How would we ever fill it?

But we really love it. You see the picture. It also has a bit of a story to it. When my grandmother became a professor instead of teaching high schools, my mothers family moved. My grandfather chose to save money and moved the entire house himself, on a flatbed truck. The breakfront that they had bought when they got married fell off the truck, and my grandmother was heartbroken. Her aunt, my Aunt Mary, who I only knew as an eccentric old women who talked A LOT, put her foot down one day soon after the move and said, "Elsie, we are going out to buy a new breakfront." And this is that breakfront. So it has fond memories for me, about my grandmother, my grandfather (ob"m) and my great-great-aunt (ob"m). And I love heirlooms. Living so far from family, its important to me to have pieces of my family close by.

So tell me what you think - we usually think that form must follow function. In this case, I think function must fall before form.