Trying a new hobby

Since buying our first house in October, I've realized I don't have much furniture.  And by much I mean I had a breakfast table, 3 chairs, a couch, dresser, and a full size bed.  Doesn't really fill up 2800 square feet, right?  At first I was frustrated that I was spending so much money on furniture and accessories that didn't even seem to make a dent in the echoing rooms.  Reason (aka Mr. Sew E.T.) stepped in and told me to stop spending all our money and make a b-u-d-g-e-t.  Yuck.  I hate those!

We started in January and I think we're doing pretty well overall.  I fell in love with this gorgeous live edge table but just couldn't fit a $7,000 dining table into the budget - go figure!  I was determined to have something similar.  I even went so far as to contact my local sawyer (that's the term for a person who saws wood!) who saw the picture and quoted me $4,000 to build the table and I would stain and lacquer it.  Ok, getting closer, but not quite there yet...

I'd spent some time daydreaming at Ana White's blog before, and decided that now I have a house and a garage (plus a Mr. who likes power tools), why couldn't I start building my own furniture?  I made myself a Pinterest board just for my ideas and even found a really cool one for a live edge inspired version using big box lumber.  I decided to try the Truss Beam Table from Ana White and Shanty2Chic for my first attempt.  We bought a Kreg Jig K4 Pocket Hole System, sliding compound miter saw, belt sander, and table saw mostly from Craigslist or the pawn shops around town.  We've been working on it for about a month and a half now, but I'm sure if we had a match under our bums we could have finished in a much, much shorter period of time.  Lots of other things to do around the house too you know!

Table base is upside down for finishing before we attached the table top.  That's the bottom.  See all those holes?  Those are the pocket holes to join the boards with the Kreg Jig.  

Here's the almost finished product!  I'm so excited about how it turned out.  Not the $7,000 table, but it will work just as well and the cool part is we built it together.  I'm always impressed with how crafty I am!  I'll talk more about the finishes I used on the table to turn it from blah pine to sultry mocha in a future post.  Have you made any wood working projects?  How did they turn out?  Do you want to see more of the projects I'm working on?  My to-do list is almost as long as my quilting list now!

Yes, this is my formal living room slash impromptu workshop.  The table is so much better in person!  We put the bench together last night - more on that later.