The Incredible Shrinking Table

I have been working on another Farmhouse Table for a dear friend over the last couple of weeks.  It is allll-most done.  I think.  It’s way  more stressful to build for someone you know, you know??  Anyway, I am anxiously waiting for my daughter to get home so she can help me haul it in the house so I can finish poly-ing and wax-ing it.  It’s about 45 degrees outside, and things are taking too long to dry!

Anyway, working on this latest table (#9, if we’re keeping count), reminded me that I never showed table #8.  That’s probably because it is nothing really new or different than the other farmhouse tables I’ve built…but also because the blasted thing drove me crazy.

Back before Thanksgiving, I realized I had enough leftover wood to make a table base.  So with only a few extra dollars (OK, maybe $50) to buy wood for a top, I could make another table to fill my empty dining room.

And so I did.  I assembled the base, the top, brought them inside and put them together…

But something was wrong.

If you really look closely at the two preceding pictures, you might be able to see it.  The breadboard ends were crooked!  I have no idea how it happened, but both of the ends took off at a slant.

I tried to convince myself that it reeeally wasn’t that noticeable.  I actually tried to sell it, at a significant discount, but I couldn’t sell it without pointing out the flaw—and big surprise, no one wanted to buy it then!

So what’s a girl to do??  Well, I ignored it until a few weeks after Christmas.  We actually had people sitting at it for Christmas dinner, and we built a puzzle on it…and it continued to drive me crazy.

So my nice big table got shrunk!  I took it back outside and disassembled it.  I removed the offending breadboard ends completely, and then I cut down the aprons on the long sides of the table by about 9”.

I was left with a petite farmhouse table!

It sold more easily this time, because I didn’t feel I had to apologize for it!

Oh, and did you notice my cute little bentwood bistro chairs?  I picked them up at Ruffles & Rust a few weeks ago.  I think they’re keepers! 

Now I just have to build a table to go with them!