I made a table!
OK a little bit more of a story than that. I bought Tim Ung’s pattern for the table itself a while back, and I was trying to think of a way to make it a little more fun.
Then I saw a cool tile pattern while we were in the endless search for a backsplash for our kitchen remodel. It was black white and gray, which was too boring for our kitchen, but I was like, ooh, what if I did that in wood? So I started making the top:
This actually was a really nice zen thing for me to work on last year when my cousin was diagnosed with Gliblastoma and I was having a hard time dealing. It was fiddly as sh*t to get all the pieces ready to cut, which was a great distraction. Unfortunately, he passed in March, and I wound up putting it aside for a few months.
Then finally, in November, I started building it. First I built the base:
The bottom bit was not part of the original design - I wanted it for a) A place to put more stuff and b) additional stability. I also wound up doubling up the thickness of all the legs for more stability, plus it held the bottom bit in place better.
Then, I started gluing. And gluing. And gluing some more.
And then peeling and peeling and peeling:
Added some finish to the top:
And at this point I was like wait…how do I keep crap from falling into the gaps between the pieces? I had been considering doing poured resin when someone suggested a much, much easier method: Buy a glass top.
Whole thing took an entire box of 1/4" Columbia cherry wood and then some, half a box of Columbia maple, and a bit of walnut. I don’t think I want to do the math on how much it wound up costing in the end, but I’m really happy with how it finally turned out.
