After moving into my house with basically no furniture besides a bed I was on the lookout for several essentials. However, I couldn't bring myself to spend so much on a manufactured kitchen table. So Kyle suggested that we build a table. Looking around at a few blogs I saw the results of those weekend projects and signed up. Well 2 months later, I finally have my table. Here's the story of how it came to be.
The intial plan was from
Ana White because it was fairly simple for beginners like us. Well it turned out nothing like that because we're Burns' and think we always have a better idea how to do things. We got the bright idea to use barnwood for a real farmhouse look so we headed over to neighbor Hector who had a fallen down barn just chock full of wood.
Devin and Kyle dove in like it was the motherlode but I was quite hesitant because how the heck was I supposed to get a table out of this crap? As we brought it back to the shop we cleaned up a section and threw some water on it and a glimmer of hope emerged as the wood revealed itself to us.
The first day was spent pulling out rusted nails, cleaning off the dirt and bugs and trimming the pieces down to see what we had to work with.
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| Getting rid of nails |
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| Trimming it up |
Due to the wood we had picked, some were full length pieces while other short pieces so Devin played jigsaw puzzle until we came upon a pattern that worked.
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| Jigsaw table |
Now that we had some semblance of a table we had to take of the edges to make sure they would fit together flush.
Next up came planing. I was hesitant if we should do that because I didn't want to lose the gray barnwood patina but we tried it out on a test piece and it actually brought out more of the wood so we moved forward.
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| Devin running it through planer |
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| Me running through planer |
Now it was time to glue. Working quickly we liberally applied wood glue and placed the pieces next to each other. Then we got some of Dad's big clamps and tightened it all up.
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| X Marks the spot--and the eventual size |
While the top was on its way we now had to figure out the bottom. There was some debate over continuing to use barnwood as legs or going with manufactured legs. After seeing the top I was hesitant to add more barnwood because I didnt want to it be too imposing. At Home Depot we found some nice country legs that added a feminine quality to the table. We also picked up some shims, screws and 2x4s for the rest of the frame. Building the frame took a whole day of gluing and screwing.
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| Framing it up |
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| Making sure it fits |
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| Trying out the legs |
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| Checking the height |
For ease, we decided to paint before putting the top on so the legs were sanded down and I applied a flat white paint.
After applying some wood hardener to the top it was time to attach it to the bottom.
The bottom was not at all level so we used shims to nail the supports in place and attach to the frame.
Finally it came time to see the top! We were very nervous to flip it over but all the gluing and screwing held and we had ourselves a sturdy table. However, the top was still in pretty rough shape because it wasn't very level.
Next came several hours of sanding and hand planing to get the top down to a level surface.
After all this, the table was finally moved to my house for the final step of polyurethane. That process alone took about a month because so many coats were needed. Due to the character of the wood, there was also some holes so it took a while to fill those up.
Finally it got moved inside and was ready for its place in my home. I'd lived with tape on the floor for weeks in anticipation.
I ended up getting chairs at WalMart to match the farmhouse table. I can't believe I ended up with such a gorgeous table from a heap of barnwood. And it's complimented nicely by a table runner from Grandma Doyle.
For the inaugural meal I had the boys over for Sunday dinner. As Kyle said "
The table stayed up and dinner stayed down." so I call it a success!
Overall the table and chairs came to about $250 (the chairs were about half that). To buy a table like this would be more than a thousand dollars and now I understand why. This table would not have been possible without Kyle and Devin. I could not imagine how a dilapidated pile of barnwood would transform but Devin was confident in her vision the entire way. They devoted many hours of their life to this thing and I am eternally grateful to them for that. They aren't scared of hard work and are now embarking on making their own barnwood table! I love that barnwood has a story and a history to it and I can hopefully find some more places for it to fit into my cabin in the woods.
After celebrating a peaceful July 4th (no fireworks, but homemade
blueberry muffins!) we set out on my last day for another ride that I
had never been on. This time the goal was Ant Hill. To get there we
passed this gem of a wreck:
The top of the hill offers spectacular views. It makes you realize just how small and alone you are when you look around and cannot see a sign of civilization as far as the eye can see. No houses, no power lines, nothing. 
The sun was shining bright on us but off in the distance were some storm clouds so we made our way back down to a safer elevation. On the way back to the ranch we passed by an elk who was not at all concerned with us. She was focused on eating. We got back just in time to beat another storm. Meris was joking that I could never leave because every day I had been there it had rained. Alas, I did have to leave though and with a heavy heart. 
