Not the most exciting title in the world I grant you, but it’s what it is. For decades I’ve dreamed of having a long, grand dining table, fit for a king. Or at least a medieval banquet. I’m afraid I quiver at the price of such items, so imagine my joy when I came across a bunch of dirty old 11ft long cedar beams, left to rot in an industrial building that I’d bought. All I could see was a dining table, laden with tofu, jackfruit, avocados, chick peas, and other culinary delights. Ok, maybe you’d see a hog roast, but you get my drift.
For years I’ve coveted various dining tables, often at Snape Maltings as they tend to get the kind of thing I like in there. And then I found this bunch of smelly old beams, knowing that one day I would be eating off them. This is the first one, set up at a local saw mill who ripped four of them in half for me to create eight thick planks that would make up my table. The idea was to use six planks for the main section, with spares to create a frame.
The catalyst that sparked the start of this creation was the discovery of a nice chap called Jack O’Hara, aka Man of Steel. Jack makes amazing things out of metal! Here he is making the table’s legs…
Now it’s starting to look like a table, right? (These aren’t the legs!)
The next step was to join the planks together using a biscuit jointer. I’ll point out here that this table wasn’t a solo effort. The very talented Graham and Darren helped me at various stages, and I made them do the really skilful bits!
Then down on the floor to start the sanding process, firstly with a floor sander…
Then many hours of sanding using three different hand held sanders with varying degrees of coarseness. I never thought this was going to end!
Once I was happy with the top, we ripped down our spare planks to create a frame around the table, with mitred corners…
Once I was happy with the finish it was time for lots of Danish oil. I’ll just point out that I had already treated it to get a deep soaking into the timber, before sanding it back again.
Three coats later, ta da…
And here she is (is a table a she?) in situ…
So chuffed with my dream table. It’s the little things in life.