Our Coffee Table Saga Continues

Will I ever find the perfect coffee table?  Is this is the one?  I just don’t know.  But I do love what we’ve got going on now!

So, if you read THIS POST then you know that I’ve seen a lot of different coffee tables pass through my living room.  And I even hinted strongly that maybe, just maybe, our ‘forever’ coffee table might be coming soon.  And we were soooooo close. Live edge with hairpin legs??  Oh, yes!

I had my metal fabricating friend ‘whipping’ up a set of hairpin legs for me.  And by whipping up, I mean, we’ve talked about it back and forth for about 2 years 😉 And that was just fine – why rush into these things!?!  And it’s a good thing, too, because way back when it started out as a bench! See? This is why I don’t rush into anything….unless I see a cool thing at Value Village or Winners because there’s no room to wait there!

When I got word that Randy had the legs ready, I was excited but busy schedules meant my brain was scattered and I drove by a few times without swinging in to pick them up.  Until one day I did remember and boy, oh boy, what a pretty set of legs!

I knew that I would have to do some work to my live edge board, I had last worked on it about 4 or 5 years ago.  I wanted to resand it, maybe stain it again with some Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint and then give it a few good coats of Hemp Oil.  But, I had the legs finally and I wanted to envision how it would look once it was all put together.

I took the legs, headed to the studio and pulled out my live edge board.  Whomp, whomp….in all our back and forth, we failed to take into account the actual width of the board itself.  We had calculated the height perfectly, but missed that one aspect of it #rookiemove

We made a new plan, but that got my wheels turning – what did I have on hand that I could turn into a coffee table NOW because I’m not always super patient { no comments from the peanut gallery } when I have a cool project soooo close to being done! Then it hit me, the section of old barn door in the loft!!  It would make the coolest table!

I hauled it to the studio and got looking at it.  I couldn’t take off the old back support because it was on there with long nails that were bent over and I didn’t want to risk damaging any of the boards.  Instead, I would have to find an old board that I could add to it. And of course, I knew it had to be an old board because it was 7/8″ thick, not 3/4″ or whatever the new 1″ boards are.  Thankfully we have lots of bits and pieces for just the case like this and I found exactly what I needed, trimmed it up and screwed it in place.

Wait, let me back up and tell you a little about this door.  It was the door to the chicken coop that we built when we first moved here, it was already in the barn.  Then when the chicken coop got switched to a pony stall, we cut the door down, leaving two cross pieces on the door in use and only one on the remaining chunk of door.  The boards are tongue and groove so it stayed together well enough, but would need to be supported to be a table and to allow the legs to be the right height….because a rocking table is annoying as all get out.

Once the door was properly supported, I attached the legs and hauled the coffee table in from the studio and tried it out in the living room….once I moved my pretty turquoise one out of the way….again!  And guys, my barn door table is all kinds of awesome.  The chippy paint matches the carpet perfectly, it has character { check out those hinge and handle marks!! } charm and super cool legs.  It is chunky enough for the couch and the size still lets us manuever through the living room with ease.

I brought it back to the studio for a coat of hemp oil which really brings out the character of the door.  Hemp oil is easy to apply, especially to old wood like this, it drinks it up!  I just rub it on with a rag and let it soak in.  Easy peasy, you may have caught that on my Insta-stories?  I love watching the transformation!!

For now, we have this character-filled coffee table taking center stage in our living room.  Will it stay? Will we go to the live edge version later?  Who knows? We’ll just have to wait to see!  But for now, I’m quite thrilled this options – because no one has a table quite live this one, eh?

To be continued,

Lori

PS If you’re interested, I have a lovely painted coffee table for sale – you can see it HERE