The Table

I'm sure you thought of little else since I last posted about the reclaimed wood I acquired back in ...ugh...September. Frankly, it's been taking up a decent about of my headspace too. Anyway, I'm not done yet with what I'm making, but it's far enough long as of last night that I wanted to blog it. I'm fairly confident in saying that this is the most badass thing I've built so far. It is looking really legit, and I think after I finish it, I'll no longer feel slightly fraudulent when people ask what I do for fun and I say "I build furniture."

Here's my "inspiration" piece (that's what cheapskates DIYers call furniture they really like but that costs way too much so they hack something similar together).

It's from Restoration Hardware and is about $1100. Don't tell Todd, but I would have almost definitely bought this table if they'd had it in the right size, but the 48-inch smallest size they had was way too big for our space, so custom was the way to go. 

I've acquired all of the wood I used so far for free, so it's perhaps not quite as perfect as I would like, but considering that I have been after it for over two months now (including "milling" a decent amount of the wood myself) I'm feeling pretty satisfied with the results. 

This is the base. The arches will be glued together and finished so they look like a single solid piece of wood. I, being literally unable to add accurately, cut twice as many as I needed, which annoyed me for two reasons: 

1. I really liked that wood and didn't have much extra and used all of my supply on unnecessary arches

2. Cutting arches accurately with a jigsaw is kind of a time-consuming activity, so I got to spend a bunch of time on something I didn't want to do in the first place. This is why they tell you math is important in school :/

The top was the first part I put together about a month and a half ago using these seriously heavy-duty pipe clamps. I had the pipe lying around from a failed project two and a half years ago, and it wasn't cheap so I just kept it and figured eventually I'd come up with something to use them for. Packratting almost always pays off. The clamps (the red parts) were maybe $15 for both.

I edge glued and used my Kreg Jig to put pocket holes across the whole underside of it, then cut out the circle with my jigsaw. Still a bit of cleanup to do on the edges. I haven't decided if I'm going to use some homemade edgebanding to finish the edges or leave them raw. They glued up nicely and look awesome from the side...so, we'll see.

This was my first "dry run" last night. Looks pretty level! The arches and supports on the base will be the same at the top as the bottom, just like the RH image.

 And a bit closer so you can see the detail a little more.

Now I'm puzzling over how I want to attach the whole thing. I'd like for it to come apart so we can move it at some point if needed, but I haven't yet figured out how to make it totally sturdy and stable without gluing and at least few screws (invisible, obv) and if I glue it...well...wood glue doesn't exactly come apart super well. The challenge gives me something to think about while I'm falling asleep at night, though, so it's an ok problem to have. 

Lastly, one other note from the garage: we installed this tire rack last month. I have snow tires and regular tires. Always having an extra set of SUV tires around the garage gets cluttery, so I was pretty jazzed to discover that they make racks for tires to get them off the floor. This was another step toward getting the garage cleaned up and possibly to the point where we can put a car in there. A month later, I can report that the tires haven't fallen off the wall yet. Wahoo!