Handcrafted by B & G

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since our last post- we have been busy bee's. Garrett was traveling for work quite a bit and since his return we have been super busy with lots going on in our world! The holidays are coming up and we are thrilled to be hosting the Speed family Christmas this year so I am in the mode to get everything ready for our Christmas dinner! This might be our best project yet, not to mention the start of a very hopeful furniture making business idea :)

 

After replacing our iron baker's rack with our beautiful handcrafted buffet table (previous post) , we had to finish the room and replace the table that matched the old baker's rack. I wanted a statement table that was big enough to host 6 or more so DIY FARM TABLE here we come!

 

 

As always our trusted source for the plans to start with were compliments of our two favorite blogs: Shanty-2-chic & Ana White :) You can find word for word, step by step instructions & pictures on each of their sites. We tweaked the plans a little to better fit our taste and here is how it turned out.....

 

First we put the legs together to build from the base up...

 

 

Once we put the legs together and  matched them perfectly we attached them using two middle beams. It's hard to balance the boards and drill them together on your own so this is definately a two man project.

Then we attached the crossboards....

This is the structure before we put the top on, with two more support beams added on the side of the top middle beam.

 

Now it's time for the table top! **This is what we did different from Shanty-2-chic & Ana White. We decided not to do breadboards on the ends

We built the table top on top of the base, measuring how much hangover we wanted on each end, before actually attaching it. We lined them up on the base to make sure each was even and layed flesh with the table bottom. Once the top was one solid piece we flipped it over, lined it up on each side, then connected it to the base, drilling up from the bottom.

 

We painted the buffet table with chalk paint so we wanted to stain this and bring all of the colors together in our kitchen & dining area

 Since I was going to handle the staining, my wonderful husband did all of the sanding.....

We only used 1 coat of stain & put 3 coats of Poly over the stain to give it a little shine and to seal and protect the color. The wood soaked up the 1st coat and the 2nd coat was a little uneven in some places but 3 coats was perfect!

 

 

From start to finish the table took about 16 hours. That's including the wood cutting, putting it together, then staining and sealing it. This thing was incredibly heavy but we have some amazing friends that helped Garrett get it in the house :) 

 

 

 

Garrett built a matching bench for one side and we have added 4 chairs that tie everything together just perfectly. The plans for the bench had to be altared just like the table since we left of the breadboards on the bench as well.   (You can find the original plans here) . Our finished product is just BEAUTIFUL! Now I am ready to host a big family dinner :)

 

We have some small projects going on around the house right now, in addition to some projects we have been asked to do for friends and family :) The holidays are just around the corner so we are excited to be spending some time with family over the next couple of weeks.

Talk soon :)

-B & G