Ooh - new table

My lovely new table is finished and installed in the kitchen.

Here it is in all its converted loft bed and 40 year old oak goodness.

The top has just been treated with a vegetable oil diluted down with some white spirit, then rubbed and rubbed and rubbed with some cotton and elbow grease.

We had to bring it in, legs first through the door, then the top through the window, once the legs were screwed to the top we could manouver it around the kitchen a bit to find the best spot. 

At the same time, Christalina got a sprucing up too - Christalina being the 50s fridge in the corner.  She was yellow until yesterday, and now she is pretty in pink.  She came from the basement of a friend's house, but didn't work, so her innards were robbed from another fridge Brendan found in the tip, and managed to squeeze into Christalina, then she got a paint job and moved in.  Because her innards come from a bigger fridge than  her original design, she tends to move around a little, making the bottles inside her tinkle when the motor kicks in.  Hence we consider her to be a presence in the kitchen and she got a name.  (Obviously she is a proper fridge - full of bottles of booze, cherries for my martinis, some olives for gin and tonics, and a couple of bits of cheese and bars of chocolate - no room for anything else).

 

I think the table is perfect, and Brendan has done a great job.  Hard to see the scale here but with six chairs easily tucked in you should be able to work out that it is pretty big, 240 cm length (ish) and 110 cm wide (ish), only ish because they are not straight lines but wibbly wobbly following the line of the bark.

And today was our first BBQ of the year, chicken legs and salad!

Don't buy one - I'll make it!

I would like a new kitchen table that will function as both dining table and work top.

I saw one I liked in the shops but did not buy it as I am basically far too tight to spend any money on new stuff in shops, especially when there are two zeros in the price ticket!

But I did go away and think about it - in fact I thought about it lots and lots, and lots and lots, and then lots more.

My problem is I love my old kitchen table so I don't find replacing it an easy task, particularly as it has a bit of family history to it.

Anyway, Brendan has decided to make me a new one. Even though now I am not really sure I want a new one, I now have no choice in the matter.

The new table will be made from Thea's old loft bed from Ikea, cut up and reused to make the table legs and stretchers.

 I am even allowed to paint it white the way I want.  The little dowel pegs sticking out are there to fill in the holes from its previous assembly as a bed and will be sawn off and sanded.

The top will be made from one piece of solid oak.

Obviously this is not as straightforward as it sounds.  For one we had to have a 'little' debate on how the finished top should look, eventually we agreed on a rustic planed edge, with only the two sawed edges being straight, the sides being left curved in line with the planks natural growth.

The first lot of sanding was done today, just the underneath to be smoothed off to finish.  The thickness of this 40year old piece of oak will make a fantastic table top, but it is like iron to work with, and incredibly heavy to move around.

It will, when finished be considerably bigger than our current table, and will have to come into the house in two stages, legs then top.  Looking forward to it now, even though it means that in order to keep my existing table I will have to relocate it upstairs into my office and remodel up there.  Oh dear.  I shan't enjoy that - honest. he he!