Farmhouse Table Tutorial

I will try my best to give an overview as to how we created the table but almost all the credit goes to Ana White's blog and instructions here and to Ashley at Attempts at Domestication who walked through the plans on her blog posting here. We made some mistakes but I have mentioned those below so that you can learn from them and save yourself some grief.

We adjusted the final product from Ana White's instructions to create the size we wanted. Our table ended up measuring 5' long and 37" wide.

We started out by purchasing all our wood at the Home Depot (we had a gift card from Christmas so our table came in VERY cheap!!) and politely asked if they would cut it down to size for us. They agreed which saved us a ton of time and stress.

(Not pictured) I sanded all the pieces down with 150 grit so they were nice and smooth. Then applied wood conditioner to all the pieces so the stain would go on nice and pretty and not blotchy.
Then you let it dry.


Next up: assembly!

Steve pre-drilled the holes for the screws on the "aprons".

All screwed together and ready for the "supports"

First mistake: he screwed the supports in with the frame upside down because the reasoning was that it would be flush with the bottom of the frame since it was laying on the floor. So, when we flipped it over, we realized that they weren't all exactly flush. **LEARN: Screw in supports with the frame right side up so you can see what you are doing.

Legs on! Notice that we liked the chunkier look on the legs so we went with 4x4's instead of 2x4's.

While Steve was upstairs working on the frame, I was in the basement working on the top of the table. I laid all four planks out just how I wanted them to look on the table top (taking into account any knots or unpleasant spots or whatever). Here is where I should mention that in both other blogs I was relying on, they used 1x10's for the top but when we were at Home Depot, we found 2x10's (think chunkier) which we like better so we picked those up instead for a more chunky look.

Second mistake: We should have laid the planks onto the frame first to see if they were warped or laid weird or something like that. Enter me, perfectly confident that no such thing was necessary because I had followed all the instructions to a T!!! **LEARN: Lay your planks out on your frame to make sure they aren't warped before staining!!!

This was my first piece of stained plank-top and it was beautiful.... I went ahead and stained all of them....

Back upstairs, Steve had added the support braces. Look at Copper- he was so stressed by all the banging and cafuffle that by the end of the day, he just laid down and tried not to care.

So, we brought my stained pieces upstairs (the next day) and laid them all out on the table. Enter gasping and shock... they were warped!!! There are many reasons wood can get warped and I won't go into all the options we went through (including planing all the planks which would have taken forever!!!) but I will say that we scrapped it and went with Plan B. Steve did try to sand them down so they would lie better but it was no use. They were badly warped and we were spending a lot of time and effort into something that might or might not work. **LEARN: Stick with the 1x10's!!!

Plan B was to buy new planks- not the 2x10's that we originally loved- because there would be a greater chance of them warping. So we headed to Menards (at this point we were a little leery of HD) and picked up 1x10's. Long story short- we treated and stained them (again) and then laid them onto the table to screw in. One or two of them was slightly warped after all of that but not crazy like the other ones. It was doable.I didn't really take any pictures of this process because I was tired of it and just wanted it done!

Here is the finished product, in all her glory! She is quite pretty.

We used MinWax's Dark Walnut (I did 2 coats) and I used the matte finish polyurethane (3 coats).

I had some quality Ben Moore Aura paint (color: Chantilly Lace) leftover from our kitchen makeover, so that's what I used on the bottom (after filling all the holes with wood filler and sanding smooth).

Phew. Glad it is done!

Feel free to ask questions if you have them! Hope the tutorial was helpful.
I am off to search for chairs and a bench!

Farmhouse Table!

Introducing the newest piece of furniture to our home... our farmhouse table!

I will post a tutorial later but for now, just enjoy this piece of beauty! We are thinking of adding a bench on one side for the kidlets to sit at and chairs on the other side. Now, the big decisions are -- what kind of chairs do I want?? There are so many options!

I love this picture with the bench and the modern chairs....

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Or this one with white chairs and I could do a fun upholstery fabric on the chairs...

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Decisions, decisions... and now I am off to do the third coat of Polyurethane!

Herringbone Table

So, I have had this little IKEA side table for awhile now. I picked it up for free about a year ago. It was originally the brown finish but then I spray painted it yellow- it was okay but I didn't love it. But it was free and is an easy piece to change-up.

I came across this post on The Nester awhile ago who linked back to Centsational Girl's post here about her herringbone pillow. I love the herringbone pattern and wanted to try it on something, so I gave it a whirl yesterday.

I modified her instructions though, since I wasn't using fabric paint, or a pillow, or stencil tape.... I basically just used what I had on hand in the house= Chalk Paint & Masking tape (would recommend painter's tape instead but mine looked too thick).

Start out by taping it off. Eyeball it- I am not concerned with perfection.

Here is what it looked like before I painted it:

And here it is, in its old home, revitalized and ready for admirers.

What do you think? An improvement?

My baby is 5.

Where does the time go!?! I feel like it was just a few days ago that I got to cuddle with my newborn babe all night long the first night after her birth. She slept 6 solid hours that very first night, all snuggled up under my chin. The nurses were upset with me because I didn't wake her up to nurse her. Yeah right- my first born didn't sleep through the night until she was 9 months old and they were chastising me for letting this one sleep?? By the way, she was born at a very healthy 9 lbs., 4 ounces- I don't think she was in danger of starving. Look at that face... yes, that is my daughter... not sure about the world yet and not always the friendliest of faces, but inside, there is a very sweet and sensitive girl.

my sweet Kailyn was so excited to be a big sister, and what a good sister she is.

So, here I am now,  5 years later, and she will be entering kindergarten in the fall. She is home with me every day now, and I love it, and I will miss her greatly when she enters the school world. I do not forsee any more babes in our family, so this is our last. What a joy it has been to have her in our family.

We celebrated her birthday by having a Teddy Bear Party with some of her friends from church and others she knows (this was her first real birthday party and she was so excited).

I made a teddy-bear-sledding-cake which she thought was too cute. Turns out to be perfect timing, because we got our first real snow of the season the day of her party.

the teddy bears had their own picnic lunch

Happy birthday Louisa!