Our journey began in January this year. Hunter walked into my dining room and stopped, struck by a vision of the table that could be. He proposed the idea of building a gaming table together, and the plan spawned from there! We had a scribble of a quarter of a table on graph paper, and went into action. We figured it'd be simple: buy some wood, put it together, color it, and bam! Little did we know how much time we'd end up putting into this "little idea" of ours... but it was well worth all of it :D
Without any further ado... here's a fun photo montage of the entire process!
Bought all the wood we figured we'd need January 6th.
Chariot of wood! More dangerous than expected :d
Almost immediately after starting to use the jigsaw, Hunter broke the blade XD Thankfully, we had a circular saw on hand!
When cutting the 4x4s for the legs, they weren't all cut to the same length. While I agreed that Hunter had a good idea for getting them all cut down equally, we definitely didn't have the right tools to keep them stable enough and stuck together to hand cut them down. Ended up just making them worse :/ Finally convinced him to just let me sand them down by hand. Took awhile, but they came out well enough!
Table fully assembled!
Time for shelf doors! Have to keep the kitties out of all the stuff we can store in there :)
One of the doors wouldn't fully shut :( Ended up having to sand it down later, and now it functions beautifully!
Beautiful day to go sanding and staining!
Picked out red oak stain to go along with the oak wood! The color reminded me of a pirate ship :D
Built, stained, and poly'd! Bought chairs and a storage ottoman off of Overstock to go along with it :D Time to have gaaaaaaaaaame nights!
Had Balo over last night to celebrate with us! We drank, played board and card games, and even did some dancing when Balo shared with us that he knows Ike Ike! :) Was tons of fun!
Found out the chairs might not be the best ever- Balo leaned back at one point, and his chair nearly snapped in half! :O However, this is exactly why I paid a little extra for the protection plan. Put in a service request today, and I don't think they'll be able to fix it, so I'll already be getting a new chair!
Overall, it was a long process (just over 2 and a half months), but it was an enjoyable learning and bonding experience for Hunter and me :D Good to know that we didn't fall prey to the frustration the new Ikea-building couple did. We were able to work through disagreements and learned when to trust each other with some ideas :) Was a fantastic project... and we're both looking forward to our next!
Some Lessons Learned:
- Measure twice, do whatever it is once (duh)
- Countersinks are a beautiful thing
- Paint rollers are your friend, even with polyurethane- after all, the table is mostly just one big flat surface
- Don't start a project that requires you to be working outside in the dead of winter
- Don't utilize wood stain indoors. No, windows doesn't provide enough ventilation.
- A right-angle drill/screw driver bit is well worth a 25$ purchase.
- It's totally okay to return things
- It's also very okay to ask people at Lowe's for help. It might take awhile, but you can find some extremely nice individuals who will find your project intriguing enough to go above and beyond to assist you
Total Amount Returned: 259.56$
Final Total Cost: 526.48$
Number Store Visits: Lowe's 18; Home Depot 1; Specialty Woodworking Shop 1
It's important to have your terrified Taproots in a row.
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