So as I mentioned in the first post, we have recently become somewhat obsessed with DIY projects around our 80+ year old house. Isn’t she purdy?
The house is in pretty good shape, which has left us having to get creative about expending all the pent-up DIY energy from years of apartment living. We did some minor painting projects (another post perhaps), but we decided that our biggest issue was lack of certain furniture pieces; namely, a dining room table.
Ah yes…our sad little empty dining room. The issue was that I had found those chairs and bench (being used as photo displays above) at Crate and Barrel as floor models on clearance. My genius idea was that we would buy the matching table (the Basque table in Java, retailing for $599) soon after. Unfortunately, moving into a house is EXPENSIVE and we decided that the table was pretty low on the priority list, despite the obvious risk to anyone walking through who is taller than 5’6”…thankfully, the light fixture is surprisingly resilient.
Enter Ms. Ana White, who has a great blog (http://ana-white.com) for power-tool virgins like ourselves. She has a bazillion (…or maybe fewer) plans that anyone can follow to make their own furniture after making an initial investment in tools like this bad boy…
and many others. No – it was not cheap to get started with this hobby, but we’re hoping it’ll pay off in what we’ll save by NOT buying the furniture (see below for proof).
After a few starter projects, we purchased everything needed for the “Big Ur” plan from Ana’s website. I’d estimate the cost of all the lumber at ~$60, only because our Lowes did not carry the 10’ 4×4 post we needed for the legs, so we had to buy two 8’ posts (@ about $20 each) instead. Following the plans, we ended up with this after assembly:
Yes, a little rough looking, but nothing a power sander can’t fix. After sanding everything to make it as smooth and even as possible, we did a coat of wood conditioner, and picked a stain that was closest to matching our C&B chairs. We went with Minwax “Ebony”, and did 3 coats.
A couple coats of satin polyurethane later and we had a new dining room table!
Yes…we love it. It’s not perfect…but we like that the flaws give it some character. In any event, we like it so much more than the C&B version (the “Big Sur” table) that Ana’s plan was based off of, which is retailing for….wait for it…$1499!!!
WHAT?! Not to be biased, but I like ours more.
xox, katie
