Made a Table

What I've learnt from this blog post is that I am absolutely terrible at documenting things with "before" photos, and that my life would be so much easier if I got better at it. That said, let's dive in for the post for today!

My kids have had this little table that they use all the time. It actually was originally from my childhood and my parents passed it on to me when I was running the Family Day Care in the early years of life with Sophie and Rachel. The original chairs had died, but the table was still solid. A quick trip to Ikea sorted some new chairs and we got on with our little table life. 

This is the best, most recent photo I have of it, early 2021. Solid frame, but the table top bit was just chip board and had started to lift where the chip board was swelling. It did not get better, but we just kept using it. I was convinced however, that if we just replaced the table top, the table could continue to live a long and happy life. 

Enter the day that Rachel's dressing table drawers finally gave up. Rachel's dressing table was also a relic from my childhood, again, sturdy wood construction, but the drawer bases had popped out and the plastic runners they were sliding in on had started to split and fall off. When I took out the drawers to move the whole thing out of the room, what I saw was a whole lot of wooden potential for a table top. 

My original thought was to reuse the drawer fronts, but they were all nicely bevelled, and in the end I wasn't sure the three of them would fit nicely across the table. Also (I'll be honest), I couldn't get the handles off easily. But, there was an excellent surplus of wood in so many other places, that I figured I would just need to take it apart and make it work. 

So that's what I did. Holiday time came around and I started with the table, and then I unscrewed everything I could on the dressing table, and we borrowed a circular saw to do the final dismantling. The two side panels of the dressing table put together, fit perfectly across the table top. 

I sanded back the old table and cleaned it up. Then I put the new top together, with some extra support wood also salvaged from the dressing table. Rachel helped putty all the holes, even the ones no one would see. 

Steve did the final secure of the top to the frame with some brackets underneath, and I added one more extra support under the top just in case. Then I sanded the whole thing back some more and varnished it up. 

This table lives again. It's heavier, but it looks good, and I feel good knowing that two things that were previously destined for the tip have had their lives extended just that little bit more. 

Maybe one day I'll be better at before photos too.