A New Patio Table

Last week, I showed you an inspirational outdoor furniture set. Despite the fact that I am redoing my craft room, I simply could not resist making a trip to buy lumber, just in case, well, just in case I did find the time to build something.

Of course, finding perfectly straight, unknotted, and unblemished wood proved to be non-existent. By the end of my shopping trip, I had the guys in the lumber department willing to chip in. I don't know if it was because they were bored from lack of customers on a Thursday afternoon or if they looked at me in my dress and wedges (yeah, I was coming home from work) and couldn't but feel sorry for me trying to reach and pull 2x4s off of a shelf that was inches higher than my 5 foot height.

I decided that because of the inaccuracies of store cuts, I would do all my cutting at home so I drove my 12 foot pieces with the trunk hood open all the way home. Good thing I was only half a mile away from my house.

....and on Friday, I put my craft room on hold and started building. I won't go into detailed steps on how to build it because you can find that on Knock Off Wood's blog.

I will say that I finally splurged on a Kreg Jig. I've been wanting this for a while now and I finally took the leap and bought it. Instead of having to drill screws into the wood on the outside, I am able to do it from within, hiding all holes and at the same time saving me from having to fill the holes in with putty.

Do you see any holes from the outside? I am loving my Kreg Jig at the moment.

It allows you to angle your screws from behind.

Of course, I had to make what seemed like hundreds of holes.

Since I had less than perfect wood, I spent two hours sanding all my cut pieces. It was horrible, but very necessary.

After the sanding, I stained everything. Since the grooves were only a 1/4" thick, staining would be a little difficult if I did it after I assembled all my pieces.

I am not sure whether I am in love with the seeing the contrast of the grain. I bought a semi-solid color rather than a solid color and I wonder if I would be happier with a solid color. For now, it will do.

And the results:

A table for what seems to be eight. I do love the clean lines of this piece.

Now, all it needs are the benches and chairs. I can't wait to finish this project up. I'm also seeing maybe an outdoor rug, some bench cushions and a burlap table runner to make this the perfect dining area. What do you think?