A new table

August has this bad habit of if he doesn't like something he declares "no like it" as he dumps/pushes/throws/flings/etc said item onto the table. He won't allow it on the edge of his plate, or on his highchair tray, oh no, it has to be all the way out of his area on the table. This has resulted in a nearly constantly dirty tablecloth. And since our table has been a "temporary" (which has turned into 4 years) folding plastic table we used at our wedding, it always has to be covered with a tablecloth or it is revealed to be an ugly utility table.

It doesn't look so bad with a tablecloth.

But I was sick of the stains and weekly washings.

So that spurred a looking online during black Friday. Looked at World Market, Overstock, Ikea, and CraigsList. We still have a pretty narrow spot so it could be the same length but only a bit wider. And there wasn't much out there. Or if there was, it was like $400 for something I didn't 'love' and was cheap construction. So I drew up a plan and asked Dad if he had any free time. And luckily he made some time for the older of his 2 craft loving daughters :)

Picking up the supplies. Already turned table legs for the win!

I think I made 3 (2-4 hour) trips up to Dad's shop and we glued the 3 main boards together for the top, figured out where the legs would go, sanded and routed the top edge, made the table skirt support thing (which also meant a trip to Home Depot to get a better top board and wider boards for the support since I wasn't following a plan and just had bought a 3" where a 4" would've been better). The things you learn when your dad is a woodworker and you are not.

We joined the legs to the support sides with wood glue and dowels, and Dad did a couple things himself like drill the holes for counterscrewing the top to the support skirt and the final attaching of the two.

Then he delivered it to me for staining.

No matter my test samples, whenever I stain it seems to always end up a totally different color! My pick was in the bottom top corner.

It was way to cold to stain in the garage, and we have no basement, so our house smelled like a chemical factory for a couple days as I had to stain in the entryway.

The legs got super dark because they have all that rough edge from the lathe.

Fan on and windows cracked in wintertime.

I used wood conditioner first because the wood is pine and to prevent splotching.

And wouldn't you know, it splotched anyway and did this weird ugly thing on the edges. So I sanded them down again, wood conditionered again, and stained those areas again. And had a bit of a panic because as I was wiping the stain off the edges it looked so obvious that it was a patch job, so I had to re-stain the entire top part again quickly so it would all be wet at the same time and luckily, that worked! It did make the table darker than I had planned, but I was much happier with the splotching issue.

Splotches were a lot better.

Next came 2 coats of polyurethane to the bottom, and 3 thin coats to the top. Another stressful job making sure there weren't drips or brush marks.

And finally I could set it back up, it helped that I was hosting bookclub the next day, so I was motivated to get done!

I love the coloring!

But a new problem was revealed, our (from mom & dad's church) chairs looked ridiculously short next to the new table!

So the morning of book club, Doug my hero looked on CraigsList for new chairs for me. Then on his lunch break drove over to pick them up, crammed 6 chairs in his Jeep, brought them in, and then helped prep dinner for my girlfriends while I scrubbed away like a mad woman cleaning them. They had come from a Sign of the Beefcarver restaurant that was closing and are really solid wood chairs (Amish made according to the ad) for only $15 each, but have some dings, a few had a couple gouges, and had crusted food and BBQ sauce and who knows what on them.

Yay! It looks so nice. And after trying and returning a whole slew of table runner and other centerpiece options I think I finally settled on this simple one:

So the cost breakdown: wood, stain, wood conditioner, poly, and brushes for table: $175; 6 new wood chairs: $90; jute placemat, white plate, and candlesticks: $25; hours of Dad's time: priceless. Total was less than $300 for the whole things and I love it. It's just 3 inches wider, but it seemed to make a difference and felt a little more spacious around the table.

It's still pine, which is a softer wood, so it probably won't be scratch free forever. On August's side he has a new plastic place mat to help prevent marks when he bangs his fork, cup, etc, but I am hopeful it will last at least another 4 years :)

kitchen updates!

I'm happy to say I now have a built-in dishwasher instead of our rolling portable!

Ol' porty did the job, but it was a pain wheeling it over to the sink, you had to be around when it was running because otherwise the water would keep dripping, and it was taking up a lot of floor space too.

Porty in action

Here's how our kitchen looked before the dishwasher install. And yes, it was a very hard decision to lose 3 drawers in a small, storage lacking kitchen!

Handyman Doug creating the space for the dishwasher

The new dishwasher! We had a narrow space so had to get an 18 inch wide dishwasher instead of the standard 24. This will mean it has to be ran more, but we figured it wouldn't be a huge deal. This specialty size was a little more expensive, but we had some Menards rebates back since we did that new deck this summer also. So that was nice.

The dishwasher in it's spot where it remained for several weeks until Doug actually had time to hook it up! We had an electrician out to get electric wired under there, and eventually Doug was able to route the plumbing and get it in there with minimal leaks :)

So of course that meant I had to find another storage solution.

Enter my CraigsList find china cabinet.

This baby is actually a metal cabinet, which could be a pro or con, I don't know. It has a wood grain and looks like wood, but is a little lighter and seems pretty durable.

Of course I couldn't keep that ugly brown. And in a move unlike white-furniture-loving-Anne, I went for a nice pop of color in an aqua.

Naive Anne threw 2 cans of spray paint into her cart thinking that ought to do it, but 7 more cans later I was finally done! Followed by 2 coats of polyurethane.

Sprayed the handles with oil-rubbed bronze

I don't think you can see it there, but I lined the cabinets with a patterned paper too. Then we secured it to the wall so it won't tip on August, and there's a hole in the back going to a thin USB charger thing to charge all our devices. It's working out pretty nicely.

Our final project has been building a kitchen helping tower so August can be at the counter while we make food.

We followed this tutorial, but added hinges so it could fold away for storage. I cut all the pieces and sanded them, and Doug helped assemble.

Stained and sealed

ready for a helper!

And nicely folds away for storage.

Little steps at a time to make our home more efficient for us :)