With me studying non-stop for the boards the last few weeks, Jay had been getting a little cabin fever. One afternoon we were taking Butters on his walk and noticed our neighbor had thrown away an oak table top. The reason for this was obvious, it was broken in half. I didn't give it a second thought, but Jay got all up-cycle-y on me and gathered it up to take into the garage. His argument was "It's really nice wood," and mine was "It was in the crazy cat lady's house." She has 5 cats. Mine was a good argument. |
Jay became inspired to make the crazy cat table into a new table for our front patio when I suggested he pick up our messy patio before my mom came to visit for a few days. This was at the beginning of July, and although the patio didn't actually get cleaned until today, we have this pretty cool granite and oak table now.
He knows I really like the waterfall countertops on kitchen islands, so when he found some random granite tiles in our attic he decided to use the wood as a frame for a waterfall table. Granted these tiles belong to our landlords, but they were just in the attic doing nothing. We will take the table apart and leave them when we move. We can always pick some up from the hardware store later and put it back together.
It's a much better size than the monster grill stand we had built last summer (before we realized we couldn't have a little grill up on the patio, fail).
The super shiny lacquer finish on the table is from using Spar Urethane. It's designed to protect wood on boats, so Jay thought it would be good at protecting the wood on our wet deck. The plant waterers and the crummy tin awning result in a lot of water getting on everything up there. Our grill table was pretty gross after a year of being out, so we wanted to make sure this one was more protected so it lasts. The stain we used was dark walnut.
The super shiny lacquer finish on the table is from using Spar Urethane. It's designed to protect wood on boats, so Jay thought it would be good at protecting the wood on our wet deck. The plant waterers and the crummy tin awning result in a lot of water getting on everything up there. Our grill table was pretty gross after a year of being out, so we wanted to make sure this one was more protected so it lasts. The stain we used was dark walnut.
I really liked this corner detail he added for some interest. He chiseled these corners out by hand and used the fun new nail gun to attach them.
Oh and here's the other side of the patio just so you can have a look. The plants are doing great! Succulents seem to really love the weather out here so I planted a lot of them this year. Double bonus: the squirrels don't seem interested in eating them.
It's nice to have our little outdoor spot looking more hospitable, especially since we've had a few cooler evenings recently. I know my parents are hard at work refinishing their deck in KC, anyone else have an outdoor space they're tackling?
It's nice to have our little outdoor spot looking more hospitable, especially since we've had a few cooler evenings recently. I know my parents are hard at work refinishing their deck in KC, anyone else have an outdoor space they're tackling?