Monday, November 11, 2013

The A-Table



So that happened this weekend.  

We built a table!!  

My girlfriend and her cousin were gung-ho from the minute they decided we could do this and I should never have doubted them.

Then again, they hadn't built what came to be affectionately called, "The C-Table," when they were in 7th grade.  

I had to take a marking period of shop in 7th grade and decided my project would be a table.  Things were going fairly well until it came time to stand that bad boy up.  Three legs were the same height and one was off by just enough to make the table wobble.  I got to filing the other three and then two were the same height and two others were off.  Scrape scrape scrape scrape.  All four were different now.  Wobble wobble.  Scrape scrape scrape scrape.  When I finished, I pretty much had a board on the floor.  My teacher -- probably out of sheer compassion and thankfulness that he'd never see me again -- gave me a C.  

Hence, my trepidation about tackling this project.  All I could see was a much bigger C-table board on our dining room floor.  Girlfriend told me we were going to use prefab legs, so that made me feel a little better.  Then she found some amateur instructions online for us to use as a guide and I said, "Oh, we can totally make that!"

And we did.

And we didn't even use any prefab legs.  

Though we did have a leg hiccup after all.  We had a giant storage bench built a few weeks ago and despite our request for chair height, the bench is 1.5" higher than standard chair height.  Which I didn't think of until we were driving home last night after constructing the table top and support frame.  There was a good chance no one was going to be able to fit their legs under the table if they sat on the bench!

I suggested hanging a sign over the bench that said, "Skinny Bitches Only," but that idea got shot down.

So having already tracked down the lumber for the table legs and cut them, we had to go get some more lumber and cut them taller.  Now the question is whether the table will be too tall for any chairs we purchase.  If you visit us and find you're sitting on a cushion at the table, that's why.  It's our little secret.  ;)

We still have to distress the table ("You haven't saved enough for your retirement."), sand it, and stain it, but we three are very tickled with our progress thus far.  

Anyone remember who my shop teacher was?  I want to send him a picture of the table.  :)


2 comments:

Acinom said...

was it Mr Bohem or something like that? I remember he gave all the girls C's and all the boys A's.

AJ said...

Yes, mom said Boehm, too.