For all of you who sent questions via the contact form — I apologize. I just realized the form must have been broken by a WordPress update somewhere along the way. I’ve been traveling and had no idea. It makes me sick that I have ignored all these emails — I thought people had just stopped emailing…
I am going to work on responding to all the emails so be patient.
For a while my blog is going to take a completely different slant. Several months ago I made the decision to travel full-time as a volunteer at different parks across the country so all projects at home came to a halt as I prepared the house to sell.
The house is sold, the travel trailer ordered, and starting in mid June I will be on the road for (hopefully) the next few years. This is a big change so no telling how I’m going to feel about it until I am deeply into it.
I will still be posting to the blog, still sewing dog cot slings for people who don’t sew — there’s no way I’m going anywhere without a sewing machine. I have already mentally designed window covering for my new trailer home and they will be my first project. In truth — I have a long list of things I plan to do to my new much smaller home to make it livable.
I have never wanted to talk about it because it was too painful, but I have now lost both yellow labs you can see in the posts about the PVC dog cots. Nikki died February 21, 2014 after surgery to remove a spleen tumor the size of a volleyball (no exaggeration — they showed it to me). It was a long shot to do the surgery and she bled out (a complication of surgery) at home alone with me and Ellie. It was a traumatic experience that made me appreciate the wisdom of euthanasia to prevent suffering.
Ellie died December 14, 2015. She had developed a bad limp that took months to get diagnosed as bone cancer and I made the decision at her age to spare her the pain of amputation and chemotherapy and had a mobile vet come and put her to sleep at home while I petted Ellie and told her how much I loved her and was going to miss her. I like to think Nikki and Ellie are together now watching over me and waiting me to join them someday.
Both dogs were just short of 11 years old when they died. Way too much cancer going around for everyone on two and four legs as far as I’m concerned. For a while I will be traveling alone, but plan to get another yellow lab when I settle into my new way of life. Dogs are too much fun to live without them.
So I’ll still be the DIY girl, but maybe should change it to “traveling diy girl”, “wandering diy girl”, “crazy diy girl”…
I have planned on making a living room table following the same design as bench I made for the entry. You can see the details on the bench here.
I think it’s only fair to point out the reason I make “rustic” pieces — it’s because I don’t have the tools or the know-how to produce a finely crafted piece of furniture. Rustic fits me and my style better anyway.
In designing it I had to start with the top and then back into the measurements for everything else. I wanted the top to be between 32-34” square. I decided on 2 x 6’s for the top since six 5.5” boards would total 33”. No other dimension lumber seemed to work out right.
Once I had the top size and determined the desired overhang of the top on the base I could start designing the base. Based on the couch and chair the table would be sitting next to I decided on 22” legs so the top of the table would be 23 ½” high. There’s a wide range of acceptable heights for living room tables so I picked what seemed like the perfect height for my furniture.
By the way – 2 untreated 8 foot 4 x 4’s were enough for the bench legs in the entry and these table legs with a small piece left over.
Assembly
Same basic assembly as the bench. I am not gutsy enough to cut all pieces in advance. I prefer to cut things as I go so I can measure and make sure the exact size of the piece I need.
I made a mistake with the supports and didn’t realize it until it was too late – the glue had already set up and I wasn’t going to rip it apart. I added an additional board so I would have an additional board to connect the top to. See the boo boo? The 2 boards that are flush with the bottom of the apron were supposed to be flush with the top so I added on top running perpendicular to them. Oh well — worse things could have happened. I’m still finding woodworking to be an adventure fraught with lots of mistakes.
After cutting the 2 x 6 boards for the top I glued and screwed them together using pocket hole screws. I’m still working on getting comfortable with my Harbor Freight pocket hole jig and so far I am so glad I did NOT spend the money to get a Kreg. The HF jig is definitely one of their products and is far from a piece of junk — which I believe is reflected in the fact they never really put it on sale, just a couple of dollars off.
Applying finish
I decided to leave the top and the base separate for finishing and would attach the top after 30 days of drying time. I used water based poly on the bench and decided on oil base for the table since glasses might drip on it and I wanted the most durable finish possible.
I really wanted the top to be nearly perfect so I did some experimenting with methods of applying the poly. You can read about that here. I am really happy with how the satin poly turned out. It’s so nice I will be proud to have the table in my living room.
Finished table
That’s all I have until the end of the 30 day drying period. I will attach the top to the base and get placed in the living and add more pictures of the finished DIY rustic living room table then. See you in 30!
In the meantime I’ll be trying to figure out what I want to do as far as a lamp for the new table.