Building with Dad

 

In our eating area is a beautiful oak table once owned by my great-grandmother. Accompanying it are hand-embroidered seat covers with matching oak chairs. And my two-year-old son is destroying it, unbeknownst to him, with his block-banging, small tool-banging, art, and daily spills of salsa and salad dressing on the delicate embroidery of the chairs. For our family, the dining room table is the central element of our home. We eat, play, craft, eat, work, and craft more on this heirloom and it's just now becoming worn and chipped in our generation. Instead of continuing to pull my hair out at the latest water stain or new chip in the wood, I've reigned in my dad to help build a good ol' sturdy farm table. A table we can really use, adding chips and paint smudges that are actually a welcome addition, as any proper farm table should have.

 

I found a DIY farm table on Pinterest and decided this was something I could take on myself. After scratching my head over what a Kreg iij was, I decided I would need a mentor (my dad) just to help with the list of supplies. He has (more or less) taken on this project as a work of his own, disregarding the simplicity of the guide's alloted 10-20 hour involvement. Rather, it has evolved into more of a fine craftsman table meant to last 700 or so years. Sarcasm aside, it's turning into the table of my homesteading dreams, and with a bit more patience, sanding, and staining, we just may save my great-grandmothers table from being completely destroyed by late spring. Fingers are crossed.