Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Office Project Numero Uno: Worktable

After realizing that I didn’t want to spend more than about $30 on a worktable for my office, and realizing that $30 will barely by you one leg of a table, I found this beauty in the Dairy Barn on our family farm and decided to make her mine:

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Once we got her home we realized she was in pretty rough condition. Lee got to work sanding the table down and cut off a few inches of each leg because they were dry-rotted a bit at the bottom. One whole leg had to be replaced completely, but Lee made one to match almost perfectly.

Even with sanding though, the top of the table still had a layer of grime on it. You see, the Dairy Barn was not used for the purpose you would think – milking cows – at least not since I’ve been alive. It was used for cooking greasy delicious meals of greasy BBQ, fried fish, BBQ chicken, fish stew and greasy hushpuppies. And the table still held a bit of that deliciousness from every one of those meals:

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(The left side is the original table top, the right side is sanded with still a bit of grime hanging around.)

I didn’t necessarily want a film of grease on my worktable, so what do to? Enter: the pressure washer.

These days, Lee’s answer for everything is the pressure washer, and I have to say it worked miracles. Ten minutes later, grime was gone and it was time to move on to painting and sealing.

The bottom legs got a fresh white coat of paint and the top was left as natural wood with about 20 coats of Deft sealant.

So here she is now:

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Not bad for the cost of a can of Deft, huh? (We already had the white paint lying around.)

Although most of our furniture is more contemporary, I’m finding myself drawn more and more to the vintage / farmhouse / cottage look. I was a bit worried about mixing the two styles but I think everything is going to come together nicely. Fingers crossed.

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