Finished Table

So here is my latest creation. Its taken about a week but its finished and marks a bit of a landmark. One of the things I was really looking forward to was being able to spend time with my lovely family sat around our big table, and now we have it. This and the esse will be the centre of our house as oppose to the television (no still don't have one). Size wise its about 7ft in old money, big enough for the odd dinner party. Ho here it is: Enjoy. As its taken quite a bit of work I'm likely to get a bit spoddy later on in the post but for those who prefer the their bloggs a little lighter you can look at the pictures and then quit here!



There are a handy 3 drawers to store the cutlery.



As and aid memoire here a liitle about the construction. Two of the legs are cut from the old roof timbers while two are bits left over from putting in the first floor. The drawer fronts are made from one piece of oak donated buy Julia's dad a few years ago. I think it was an off cut from a staircase he was making that was destined for the fire. The grain was (is) beautiful but as a short piece difficult to know what to do with. Well I think this is the perfect use on the piece. The drawer bottoms are from an old shop fitting that we were given when some friends moved to New Zealand. The drawer sides are from some oak my dad had lying around. So all in all quite a lot is reclaimed. The new wood cost around 50 euro from the saw mill down the road and has been drying in the loft for about a year. Screws, sandpaper, stain and was cost around 70 euro. So for 120 euro i think its not a bad effort, though I say so myself!

The design is clearly English rather than French but hey the stove's English too and I guess so am I. It started out as a rustic farmhouse table but as I found its remarkably difficult to make something very rustic if at heart your a little bit of a perfectionist. The dovetails in the draws are an example: When you cut a dovetail your natural tendency is to cut the best dovetail you can. The problem is if you do a good job they look like they are machine made! If you make a nice table top it's very difficult to then go back and "distress" all your good work. The result is that the table is not so much "rustic farmhouse" so much as "baronial hall". Ho hum!

For those who care (probably no one but me) all the screws used underneath to fix the top etc. are all old style slotted wood screws ( I hate to see cross head screws used in any furniture even when they are under the table and hidden.). The best bit of the table is of course secret but since my wife has already mentioned it once on her blog there's no harm done mentioning it here as well. As to the details I can't say here. If I invite you round for dinner then I may show you (maybe). Finally here are a few pictures of the construction.