Allow me to go back to the beginning of the project and give an extremely simplified description of all the work Adam did. There were too many steps for me to keep track of and I definitely didn't do the best job of photographing all the steps. (In all fairness, I was wrangling Archer and Lyla so Adam could work on it.)
In the midst of the pandemic, Adam was searching for projects to do that would keep him busy, but the high cost of lumber limited what he was willing to tackle. Luckily, he had a pretty good stockpile of random lumber. Adam had thought to save the old front porch posts from when we replaced them with new cedar columns. He also saved all the spindles from the deck when we replaced them with cable rails. This lumber had been sitting in our shed, awaiting the perfect project.
After tackling the deck, we decided we needed a bigger table with more character and more seating. So Adam got to work designing a new table and some benches using the lumber we already had on hand. After he had his design, the next step was to plane all the spindles. He took these worn out spindles for a trip through his planer...
...and brought them back to life!
He then laminated the spindles together to form planks for the table top. This step took lots of patience. After spindles were laminated into planks, he sent the planks through the planer again to get everything smooth. He did have to supplement one cedar plank down the center of the table top since there weren't enough spindles to make the entire tabletop.
The base of the table came next! He used leftover lumber and our old front porch posts to build the base. Since the porch posts were already painted white, Adam decided to keep the base white. Stripping and sanding off the paint would have been quite the job with all those nooks and crannies!
The white base adds a bit of contrast and also ties in with the white railing posts.
Adam had plenty of leftover planed lumber to build the bench bases. Since those were nicely planed, he decided to stain those the same color as the table top. He did have to grab a few more cedar boards to create the bench seats.
Finding the perfect color to stain the table top and benches was quite the feat! We wanted something to contrast the dark color of our deck, but still complement it. After looking at several samples, we settled on a stain that turned out to be way too orange in person. Ultimately, Adam decided to use Osmo Decking Oil in the color Thermowood. It's the same product we used on our deck and have been very impressed with how well it's held up!
Since we wanted to optimize seating, we decided to add two additional chairs to each end of the table. Adam's mom was able to use our old patio table and chairs, so we opted to buy some chairs with a smaller footprint. We also wanted to ditch the chairs with cushions since they would get wet when it rained, despite our covered deck. The benches can seat 3 adults comfortably and 4 in a pinch. So we can now seat up to 12 people! We have already eaten many meals at the new table and enjoy spending time sitting around it.
(At least Adam will look at me when I trying to take a picture these days...)
Our new dining set is the perfect addition to our outdoor living area! It fits the space nicely, without taking up too much room. There's still plenty of room to play and grill up dinner.
I love that Adam built it. I love that he saved materials from the landfill. I love that it brings our family even closer together.
