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| Spoiler! This is what it looks like finished. |
Before I moved into my new place I decided it was time to
invest in a table. It wasn't exactly essential; my roommate had one we were using that was in perfectly good repair and impossibly
comfortable (If you've never known the comfort and ease of an upholstered
rolling chair from the early 80's I am sorry). I just wanted to, you
know? I had a bit of money saved up, so I started looking...
...and what I found out is that I have
expensive taste. In tables, at least. I wanted one of those rustic
farmhouse-esque tables, which despite their shabby chic appearance can
actually be quite pricey (we live in a weird world). I found the perfect thing
on the Anthropologie website (Anthro fans know what's coming). Now, I know it
is tacky to talk about money a whole bunch but I'm going to suspend my Emily Post sensibilities
for a while because this needs to happen. Unfortunately, the Anthro farmhouse
table costs about 2,000 dollars which was ever so many more dollars that I was
ready/willing/able to spend. (Side note: I own 2 things from Anthro; they are
both mugs and someone else bought them for me and I love them (in the way that
one loves mugs))
I resigned myself to not having a cool
farmhouse table and started looking at tables I could actually afford, all of
which were pretty okay (more "okay" than "pretty"). Then,
one day over the summer I was hanging out on Pinterest after a particularly
demanding day and I spotted THIS. Did you click on it? Did you SEEwhat that is?! It's plans to build the table from Anthro for..*gasp*
$65.00! I know, I know. It isn't fancy wood. It also
isn't $2,000! (Did I mention I'm a perpetual grad student? You mostly know our
deal, right? Yeah. PINE IS FINE.)
I'm getting there. I read over the
instructions and thought "Hey, I could do this. I mean, my Dad could do
this...and I could help." I hastened (I really did) to the phone to call
him.
"Hey Dad, you know how I wanted that cool
table and it was so expensive and I thought I could never ever have anything
like it well I found instructions on the internet and I thought maybe we could
build one and I know you're super busy but you always say woodworking relaxes you
and I thought maybe you could help me do this pretty please but really do say
no if you can't I understand" said I, in the world's greatest run on
sentence.
"Send me an email with the link and I
will look at it" said my father. This is my father's response to
most things of this nature. He did look at it, and called back later to say
"Yes!" Actually, what he said was "Yes, but we can't do it right
away so you'll have to wait if you really want it" and I said "you
mean like till August?" (It was June) and he just laughed and said
"Probably later than that, baby."
Fast forward to December:
I came home for Christmas and Dad said
"Let's do this" and I literally jumped from excitement. We went
to Home Depot and I walked out with a whole bunch of lumber and a receipt that
said $76.50 (okay, more than $65.00 but still well within my range of
acceptable spending for this project). I won't go through every stepsince the folks I got the instructions from have already done that, but here
are some pictures from our "build" (I feel like I'm on Trading
Spaces! Or Extreme Makeover Home Edition! I had a "build"!) I
would say the whole thing took us about 5 days but we really only worked on it
in the evenings.
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| Master Carpenter and Sassafras Apprentice |
This isn't the end- at this point the table
was still unfinished- no stain, and no distressing. I was going to make this
two posts since it is already oppressively long, but I changed my mind.
Once the table was constructed, my Dad brought
it from my parent’s house to my house and we moved it into the garage with some
assistance from a kind neighbor. Then,
my mother and I set to whacking it with chains of varying sizes, hammers,
crowbars and the like. This, you see, is what makes it look old and more
farmhousey. In fact, the other day some
one asked me “where I found the reclaimed wood “ for my table so SCORE! It
worked. I tricked you all!
Once the distressing was done, my dad sanded
the top for me one last time and they headed out, leaving me with a mammoth of
a table in the garage to work on. I
stained it “Dark Walnut”. This took a long time, and it was pretty cold in the
garage. Luckily my friend Kathryn came
over and sat on the washing machine straightening her hair while I did this, so
I had someone to talk to. THANKS GIRL! I
did get some wood stain in my hair, which was pretty gross. Once the staining
was done, I applied the polyurethane. 1
coat everywhere and 3 on the tabletop itself. I used a satin finish. After that, the table itself was done! Can you
believe it?
However, it was still in the garage, weighing
a ton. No way I was moving that fellbeast
by myself. My Dad said he’d come up
later to help me, so I set to work on the chairs. I collected a variety of ladderback chairs
from antique shops and then painted them red. I think they look pretty cool, in a funky
mismatched kind of way.
If you’re still reading, you’ll notice that
EVERYTHING was really done at this point, except the table was in the garage. It
was kind of killing me, because I had this awesome table I could be using, but
it was in the garage, ever fixed and immovable by my own strength. Then the other day I had some pals over to play
some music (ukulele, guitar, keyboard, shaker, mandolin- we were getting pretty good haha) and when we stopped
for a break I was just like “Hey pals, want to help me move my table pretty
please?” and because they are all so very awesome they immediately agreed. Thanks Aimee, Erin, Tamara, and Josh! After trying to get it in one door and
failing, we tried the other door and got it in. Much moving of furniture was
required, these folks were really good sports.
So there! It’s done! I’m so glad to have a place for all my
wonderful friends and family to gather around.
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