I BUILT a TABLE!!!

Hey! Hey! Hey!

So if you follow me on Instagram you know that I built a farmhouse table!  YAY! YAY!  I am so excited that I was able to complete this project and I love it!

So let me start with how I decided to build a farmhouse table.  There were two different challenges that caught my eye, but both were in October…ugh.  One of the challenges was the “One Room Challenge”.  You are given 6 weeks to completely restyle/redo a room of your choice and you must blog about something that you did in the room each week.  The other challenge was the #IGBuildersChallenge.  This was a 2 week challenge, where building plans were provided and you would have to build according to the plans but put your own spin/style on it.  With this challenge you weren’t provided with the plans until the evening before the challenge began.  As you all know I chose the #IGBuildersChallenge because it was a shorter challenge and I only had to focus on one thing.

 

Let’s talk pros and cons.

Pros:

1. Short challenge
2. One item
3. Out of my comfort zone, but not crazy
4. I needed a dining room table
5. Allowed me to show creativity

Cons:

1. I don’t have a workshop or garage, so I had to work in my front yard and I had to deal with the elements
2. The wood was heavy and it’s just me lifting these items
3. First timer so I was learning as I was going along

I can’t tell you how many times I talked myself out of doing this challenge.  Sometimes I don’t trust my skills and doubt myself a lot. This challenge helped me to see the worth in my work.  I would definitely build this table again, for a nice price (wink, wink)!!

Okay, let’s get into this table! I started a week late, but the good thing about starting late was that the weather was in the 80s.  I spent a long time in the Home Depot trying to figure out what type of detail I was going to use.  I ended up going with joist brackets and Crown MetalWorks Black Decorative Nail Heads for the legs.  I spray painted the joist brackets with Rustoleum Universal satin black spray paint.  By the way, I put 2 brackets on each leg and each bracket has 10 screw holes, so let’s do some multiplication:

4 legs x 2 brackets = 8 brackets

10 screw holes x 2 brackets = 20 screws on each leg

20 screws holes x 4 legs = 80 screws

So that was 80 screws that I had to spray paint and screw into the legs of the table using a socket wrench.  CRANK! CRANK! CRANK!  Good thing my SUPERMAN was around to assist me with that.  We worked well together on those legs and brackets.  A Sunday afternoon well spent. (BTW, I screwed all 80 screws into a piece of wood so that I could spray paint them.)

For the table top I decided to use 2 Crown MetalWorks garage door handles and Crown MetalWorks Black Decorative Nail Heads.  Those decorative details gave it the rustic charm I was after.

I had 2 stains on hand, Varathane Carrington and Sunbleached.  The Sunbleached stain didn’t look that great so I went with the Carrington and I was very satisfied, hey y’all saw the pictures, pretty right!  This was very easy stain to use.  I didn’t realize that I was doing it the long way.  I was painting on the stain with a foam brush and then wiping it off with a cloth.  I realized that if I had just used the cloth to wipe the stain on and off I could have moved much faster, but hey you live and you learn.  I used Varathane Triple Thick Polyurethane 3x in the Satin finish.  I only did one coat because I really wanted the farmhouse effect, but I have kids so I needed a good protector.  I brushed that on with a Blue Hawk Angle Sash paint brush and actually loved the brush strokes. Before staining I applied Minwax Wood Conditioner with a foam brush.  Because of the wonderful weather the stain and the poly dried fast.

I was able to attach the table to the base by using the Kreg Jig screws and pocket holes.  I used the Kreg Pocket Hole Jig because it was easier to move around on these large pieces of wood.  I didn’t connect both pieces until we were in the house.

There were some things I had to deal with while building this table:

1. It RAINED and it rained HARD!!!
   1. I had to create a makeshift tent, while the base was still on the sawhorses.
2. I was by MYSELF, except on Sunday when SUPERMAN helped me CRANK those screws.
   1. The top was HEAVY as crap and I almost dropped it several times.
   2. I cut some of the wood wrong and I had to re-cut it.
3. I was in my FRONT YARD!
   1. I had to deal with the rain.
   2. I worried about my table pieces being stolen at night.
   3. I worried about my tools being stolen.
   4. The bugs were attacking my ankles.
   5. The grass is not leveled and so was my walkway.
   6. I kept smiling because I saw butterflies.

All in all I LOVE my table!!! I want to build more for other people, but first I need a workshop!!  Who can help me with that?!?!?!  I am truly happy that it was a challenge because I probably would have never finished the table.  So now it’s back to Dior’s room!  Maybe I should create my own little challenge so that I can get that done in a timely fashion…lol.