School Daze

Months ago I found this on the street, being given away for free.

I found this on the street

I think it was originally a doll bed or something like that. It’s a little weird, with the posts on one end higher than the other, but it was a really cool color of cracked and crazed light blue with some coral and green showing through underneath and I thought I could do something with it.

It sat in our driveway for almost a year and then I thought… ya know, the blue of the table would be a really cool match with the blues on some of the salvaged redwood planks we’ve been saving.

Some of the planks we had to choose from

And a table was born.

First, I put a coat of satin exterior spar urethane on it to keep the paint from chipping more.

I was originally just going to plank over the top but my husband pointed out just how much better it would look if the planks went into the frame so more of the frame would show and not the raw cut edges of the planks, which was a pretty compelling option, so we dropped rails into it for the planks to sit on.

With rails on the inside for the planks to sit on

Next, we planked the top, using short pieces of salvaged redwood painted in different colors.We mixed widths and colors for a kind of nautical stripey look.

Plank by plank

I was going to screw them in from the top but once again my husband’s super excellent craftsmanship prevailed and he screwed them all from the bottom so there aren’t more holes in the planks.

Doing it right so the screws dont show

After that came two coats of exterior spar urethane over the whole thing – table top and frame.

Two more coats of spar urethane

It looks great with the new lounge chair cushions (a word to the wise – believe it or not Walmart has the best inexpensive lounge chair cushions in tons of fabric options).

Hmmm, does it want to be a bar cart when it grows up?

Steve thinks we should put wheels on it and turn it into a bar cart.

Maybe in its next incarnation. For now all I can think of is how great it will look with a couple of cocktails on it!

Linking to Funky Junk Interiors and Masterpiece Mondays at Boogieboard Cottage