Done, the Table is Done

I am so happy this table is done. After the bad stain of the previous weekend I went out and got 4 more different stains, all of which we hated. So I decided to forgo the stain and leave it natural. I set to removing the dark stain which was a LOT of sanding, so much sanding that my shoulders were aching at the end of the day. The inset middle part of the underside I left stained dark, it would have taken forever to remove the stain from all those small areas and in truth it looks nice with the contrast…not that anyone will really see it being that it is underneath.

After the marathon sanding session, I put on a couple of cost of polycrylic finish in a semi-gloss and left it to dry. Monday night I assembled the legs, glued/screwed the cross bracing in place and the table was done.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. It is solid and has a nice even surface with a nice sheen to it. Even Tom is happy, he had gotten irritated with the top being on our dining table for 2 weeks (there was no where else large enough to put it) and gave me a deadline of Tuesday to complete it by. I met the deadline but did not appreciate the pressure he put on me. In the end I am very pleased to have done this, I think I learned a lot and proved to Tom that I am capable of producing nice stuff.

And now we know: looking back this felt long but was only a little over 2 months and I only worked on it for maybe half of the weekends in that time. Summer has so many other commitments that a project like this gets dragged out.