We had been searching for an outdoor table for our deck that didn't cost a fortune, weigh a ton, and/or come with hideous chairs. Alas, no such table exists. So we made one ourselves. Charlie did the majority of it. I drew the picture, picked out the wood that wasn't warped, and did the sanding/staining.
I knew I wanted hairpin legs so I ordered a set of four on sale from
hairpinlegs.com. Charlie wanted cedar wood so it wouldn't rot and would last longer. Those were our individual requirements and I think it turned out pretty well. We both commented during the process; "This looks better than I thought it would."
Charlie assembled the top, then we worked together to add the "trim" to the outside of the table. That part was my idea. I think it makes it look more finished, and will hopefully keep us from getting splinters in our wrists when we eat at the table. Charlie held the boards in place while I did most of the nailing, which turned out less than stellar in some places. As with all of our home projects, if you come over please be sure to admire from afar and not inspect too closely. Since the table has spaces between the boards for drainage we kept joking that all of the mistakes were for "drainage purposes." My other favorite line when doing DIY projects is "That'll buff out." One huge mistake we made was thinking that it would be easy/fast to get the dust from sanding off of the table by spraying it with the air compressor. Don't do that! It left pit marks on the spots where I did it. Big oops. (The marks did not 100% buff out.)
We used three coats of polyurethane and lightly sanded between each coat. After everything was dry we attached the legs and- ta-da a table for the deck! Well....not really. We attached the legs and it was so wobbly. A few paint stir sticks for shims later under where the legs attach to the table and we were in business. We can now eat dinner outside, and feed the bugs our blood while we feed ourselves. Today was my last day of work and we had a delicious diner on the deck to celebrate.
I am very impressed with
our Charlie's skills. I am also happy to report that all three weekend projects we did resulted in 0 fights. This has got to be some kind of a record.
Lauren
Well done, I must say. I can't wait to see it next week. You guys are so handy.
ReplyDeleteThat turned out awesome! I'm surprised to hear that the air compressor didn't work so well. In wood shop, during high school, that's what I remember using to clean up our projects before our instructor would use it to apply stain/poly.
ReplyDeleteWe've got an air compressor just sitting around that my husband can't wait to use. Some day it'll come in handy with the nail gun that's also waiting to be used. Some day... new floors, cleaned up/replaced trim, etc. :)