First of many projects requested for 2015 is a Sofa or Console table for my wife that will be placed in the entry way of the house.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, while this is the finished product, it was a process of research, learning, buying of tools and finding a new supplier for wood.
Off to the web for inspiration, pictures, plans.
After much research, I found Jay’s Custom Creations and his sofa table blog post. You can find him at his website or follow him on twitter @JayBates86 . We made a few modifications to fit in the space but stayed the course with the overall design.
The next adventure was to find the wood to work with. Because I have a 13” Ridgid planer, ( Click here to see my updated surface planer) I am always looking for rough cut lumber to cut the price of materials. BINGO – located less than an hour west of us is Fox Hardwood Lumber .
Jan 2, my wife and I jumped in the truck and were off for our first adventure of the new year. We returned with 160 board feet of white oak. That is 30, rough cut, surfaced 1”x8”x8 foot boards. Because it is air dried and not kiln dried, it needed to sit in a heated area for a couple of weeks to drop from a moisture measurement of 15% to 7-8%. So my lovely wife being the understanding wife she is, we laid a piece of plastic on the living room floor and in came 30 8’ boards.
With wood dried and plans in my head, off to the shop to pick the correct boards, mill the legs and start cutting, gluing, clamping and sizing the wood to fit just right. To hold it all together, Pocket holes made the the Kreg Pocket hole tool, @KregToolCompany
But now the hardest decision, what color to stain the oak? Off to Home Depot for to look at stain samples. It was much easier than expected and we settled Minwax Red Chestnut.
The year is young, more projects to follow
An older project, but worth the mention, is the push cart I built for our granddaughters first birthday.
