Our First Dining Room

It's official. We have a dining room! A real one.... with a table and 6 chairs! We totally feel like grown ups. By now I'm sure most of you are aware of my husband's handy-ness but in my opinion it has been taken to a whole other level. Furniture building. That's right... Ryan BUILT our first dining room table. He worked incredibly hard on this table and put so much thought and time into it. Measuring and more measuring, cutting and more cutting, sanding and more sanding, staining and more staining, trip to Lowe's after trip to Lowe's, etc etc. Words cannot express how special this table is to me. And the best part about it is - it was built from wood we tore out (when we replaced the trim and doors) from our house. It is a one-of-a-kind and I'm sure we'll have it forever.

Here are pictures of the process...

Laying out the boards the way we wanted them -- we spent some time picking out the 'good' boards and creating a pattern with the varying colors of wood that looked the best to us

Once that was decided Ryan numbered them to make sure they wouldn't get mixed up

Then he cut them to even lengths and nailed on boards to hold them in place

More wood striped from the house. These pieces are thinner, so he used them for 'finishing'.

This is the underside of the table ready to be flipped over... this was the "make it or break it" moment -- to see if the boards were going to lay flat, stay together, and look good doing it.

They did! So Ryan started to stain and seal the wood. Ryan and I actually kept going back and forth about sanding and staining the wood a different color versus leaving it natural and applying a clear coat. I'm so glad we went with our gut to stain it a different color.

On to the legs... The inspiration for the legs came from a table that caught our eye last summer. It's a beautiful table from Ethan Allen, but the $1500 price tag meant that it just wasn't meant to be ours.

{ethan allen}

But when you have a husband like Ryan - he will make it happen. He actually went to the store, took some measurements, came back home, and got to work. God love him.

Let me just tell you in case any of you are wondering... building furniture is an art form. I (and Ryan even more so) have a new found respect for this profession.

But here it is so far... lookin' good!!

I told Ryan I wanted to write something on the bottom and asked him what he thought it should say, and with no hesitation he said, "To my wifey". It was so cute, so I wrote To My Wifey: Merry Christmas 2010 (yes still retro-blogging here) and something about being built from wood from our first home.

Notice the 'finishing strip' Ryan attached to the front part... the side still needed its piece to polish off the visible areas on the underside.

Once everything was attached and secure it was time for the big reveal, aka flip over...

Ta-dah!!! It's just what we wanted... something unique, rustic, farmhouse-esque... and beautiful!

I couldn't wait to get it upstairs to see how it looks with our new linen upholstered nail head chairs...

Our dining room and yes we do actually use it :)

Close up of the table top - all the imperfections give it so much character!

From a different angle...

This old light fixture didn't last very long once we the dining room started to take shape. We needed something with a little more personality...

Like this!

Sorry for the dark pictures, but here's the room with the new chandelier

My my, how far we've come...

BEFORE

AFTER

I LOVE this table and I will never forget the craftsmanship, patience, love, and attention to detail that went into making it.

Now's who's ready for a dinner party!?