Done and Done

In mid March I began what at the time was to be a one month project to design and build a coffee table. I would draw up my own blue prints, purchase my own supplies, mooch my own equipment off friends, and construct it all myself. Initial reactions were fairly similar centering around the question, "why?", but these eventually gave way to a mild curiosity as to what the end product would look like. Well, here we are.

Some may wonder why I am posting these pictures in mid-June when the project was to be completed in mid-April. It turns out building a coffee table is hard. Not that I did not appreciate this before hand, I actually figured there was a 50% chance the project would not end with a usable product and a 10% chance the project would not end with my full set of fingers, but it turns out I can plan out home furniture construction about as well as we seem to plan out our wars which is to say I was expecting a quick, easy show of force to result in my being hailed a hero but instead found myself in a prolonged, boring build that would eventually result in my exclaiming, "Screw this! I'm out of here," and leaving behind a half-completed, mangled piece of wood. Truth is things did not even start well as, my fifth grade math skills failing me, I purchased about 1.5x more wood than I would ever need.

Step 1: Cutting. Though all my legs were cut close to the same size it would later turn out that pretty close does not quite cut it in the world of coffee table assembly. More acutely, however, the cutting of a number of small pieces that I had envisioned would go along the perimeter of the table became instead me launching small 3/4 inch cubes from the table saw into Adam and Kate's Honda Element parked nearby. All the wood was eventually cut, and the extra wood stowed away, but the next step of using Kate's rusty old jig saw to remove small squares from the corner of the main piece of wood that would make up the table top ran into its own difficulties. I finished with remarkably no blood loss, but despite my best efforts the squares were not terribly geometrically sound. Nevertheless, I pressed on.

Step 2: Sanding. Sanding took place mostly without incident as sanding is a fairly simple and straightforward procedure. I would have delegated the work to a pack of monkeys or at the very least some local children who did not yet appreciate the true value of a dollar had I had some, but instead I just spent many, many hours sanding. I then also spent the following few days with a chronic dry cough as it also took me many, many hours to realize that as I was inhaling aerosolized saw dust I needed to put on an improvised face mask. Maybe some day I'll make an interesting case study for some sprightly young medical student.

Step 3: Staining. It was here that the project began to deviate from plan. Instead of applying and then fairly quickly removing the stain in the proper manner, I applied and then rather slowly removed the stain so that I essentially painted my table with it. While this was not a huge problem for the lower portion of the table top as it was a dark brown-black color, it was a major issue for the entire rest of the table which was supposed to be a lightly stained, golden-pine color but instead came out a heavily stained, golden-orange color. Admittedly much of this error came from an added laziness as instead of brushing the stain onto each little piece individually and removing it I simply smeared the pieces with a stain covered raggedy t-shirt. Looking back I am not sure where that idea originated in my head, but I would not recommend it.

Step 4: Assembly. Finally, after a long break for a trip to Greece, some graduating, and my exodus to the Visiting Officers' Quarters at Lackland, I moved on to the final step: assembly. It is in assembly where all the minor imperfections from previous efforts summed upon one another as piece did not quite flush up to piece which then definitely did not quite flush up to piece. It is also coincidently in assembly where my plans had to be radically changed. Originally I had planned to construct the table using solely wood glue as the thin, narrow design of many of the pieces I felt precluded the use of nails. Seeing as things did not fit very well together, however, I had no choice but to resort to the sturdier nails. Thankfully Paul let me know about finishing nails and how to sink them so I had a strong plan B. Unfortunately, plan B was a mother to implement. As I could not press the legs and individual pieces against the ground or some other stable structure, the solid backing that I had to resort to was in most cases my leg. Specifically my knees which I wrapped at first with improvised knee pads from oven mitts and torn rags and later with Rachel's volleyball knee pads. The job got done but not without a small amount of bruising and a fair amount of uncontrolled kicking whenever the force of the hammer strike got transmitted through the wood and into my patellar tendon.

Step 5: Quiting. After all the pieces were put and all the nails nailed I had to cover up the cracks and crevices with some wood putty, do a little more sanding, and I was done. Or at least done enough. I technically need to give it a few more finishing touches, but for now I do not care. Excitement turns into indifference with time it seems. And that's how the world gets orange coffee tables.