Dining Table

I wasn’t going to blog about this project until it was all finished.  Like in my house and decorated finished.  But that won’t be for another month, and I just HAD to show everyone my new table.  Cause I’m so danged excited about it!

I started on Monday.  I  just wanted to take it slow and work on one part at a time and make it look good.  So over the course of this week I’ve worked on this table a few hours at a time here and there.  Delilah and I have went to Home Depot everyday.  Buying small amounts of lumber, screws then stain.

Delilah practicing her gymnastics routine on the wood cart. 

The legs were a little complicated, but fun to put together.  And nothing too time consuming.

Whenever I start hammering on something the girls always want to take over.

The main post in the middle of the legs was a 4×4 I salvaged from a pallet.

Then came the table top using 2×6′s kreg jigged and wood glued together.  It’s super heavy.

Then I stained it.

Phone pic!

My lovely sister suggested I try grey washing it.  I hadn’t heard much about it, or haven’t been paying attention to this new finishing technique.  So I did a little research and thought it looked cool.  So I gave it a whirl.

You may notice I also added the diagonal braces.  I had planned to leave them off thinking it would look to busy and jumbled.  But it looks pretty awesome actually.

Plans from Ana-White: Fancy X Farmhouse Table

I altered the plans to get a custom size perfect for our dining room.

This plan is based on the Restoration Hardware table Salvaged Wood X-Based Table, retailed at $3,295.

Price breakdown for my table: $50 wood, nails and jig screws, $10 stain and lacquer.  So I think I saved a pretty penny, eh?  Also the RH table is humongous and would never fit in my house anyway.

After I make some benches and we buy a couple chairs for the ends and then get it in our dining room, I’ll share with you how it all looks.

200th Post Project Dump

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, I know. I think I’ve been suffering from seasonal depression and the never ending winter. You all know what I’m talking about. We woke up to snow this morning. But it’s suppose to get up to 60 degrees today and I’m feeling pretty optimistic that spring like weather might be here to stay. But that may change next week.

Even though I haven’t blogged in over a month, I have been doing some projects. These were small projects that in the past I would have made a post for each one, but now I feel like that would just waste your time seeing as I don’t have much to say about each one. So I’m just going to lump them all together in this epic post. (Epic might be a bit of an exaggeration.)

So here goes:

I saw this idea from Shanty-2-Chic’s blog. DIY Centerpiece Mini Planters .  I’ve been keeping an eye for some planters for my herb garden shelf.  So I made these little wooden boxes.

Currently they are housing fake plants.  Cause it’s been wonky weather outside and anything would just die.

They go with the table centerpiece I made awhile back that I don’t think I ever shared on here.

Next, I made this butterfly specimen art for Delilah’s room.  I painted each butterfly on canvas then cut them out.  Then bent them to give it some shape, and hot glued them on a diy stretched canvas.  Then framed it out.

This is a produce crate I made for fruit.  I got the idea from Pottery Barn, Stackable Wooden Fruit Crates, they are no longer available.  I made it stack-able, but never made a second to stack.  But I might someday.

I’ve been lining my flower beds with random rocks I’ve been finding.

I updated the girls’ silhouettes above our bed. Old silhouettes seen here.

And finally, we got fish!

The girls love pulling up a stool and just watching them.  Joey and I do it too.

And that’s all I can think of for now.

So this is my 200th blog post. That kind of blows my mind to think about. I’m not a Chatty Kathy, so it’s impressive that I have come up with 200 different things to talk about.  I feel like I’m becoming more motivated to do some more projects and actually share them with you.  Sorry to everyone who checks my blog only to have nothing to read about.  But also, thank you to everyone who reads my blog.  And for those of you who leave comments, you make me feel so loved.

Coffee Staining

Awhile back I made some cheese boards for gifts.  Kind of like cutting boards, but made with a softer wood, so I wouldn’t technically call them cutting boards or use them a such.

I cut a random shape out of pine and sanded them down.  Then drilled a hole in the handle.

But, they looked too new.  I wanted the aged look.  But since these are meant for food, I couldn’t just use wood stain.  So I used something I’ve been wanting to try out.  Coffee staining.

Some people use brewed coffee and paint it on.  I just mixed coffee grounds with a small amount of hot water.  So it was like a coffee ground paste.

Then rubbed it in.

Here’s another project being coffee stained.

Let it sit for a bit, then wipe the grounds off with a paper towel.  Then let it dry.

To finish it off, for the cutting boards, I applied a wood oil made for cutting boards.  I found that at Ace Hardware.  This will keep the wood looking nice.  Since you wash the cutting boards, some of the stain will come off eventually.  You could re-stain it, or just let it wear down and that could look cool too.  I haven’t gotten that far with my cheese board, so I have no clue what it will look like.

As for the other project I stained, here’s the before,

 

And after.

I made this box to hold the poinsettia we had for Christmas.  The pot was covered with the crinkly gold and green wrap, which is now sitting down low to keep the water from running out.

I also did the book crate with coffee stain.

So even though I could have used regular stain on these last two projects, I like that I’m not using harsh smelling chemicals for projects in the house.  And I can do the actual staining indoors.  And I get to use up all that random coffee I buy but don’t end up liking.

What about you guys?  Have you tried coffee staining wood?  How does it hold up?  Or have you tried staining other things?  Maybe fabric…  That’s sounding cool.