So, remember when I rebuilt my deck last month and it turned out super awesome? It’s still super awesome but it left me with a crap load of old decking to deal with. I don’t have a truck and I can’t burn it so it was just piling up in my garage. It would cost me $37 to take it to the dump, not to mention borrowing someone’s truck and gas money to drive it the 50 mile round trip. There had to be a better solution; god knows why my first thought was to attach all of it to the interior walls of my unfinished garage and make a neat rustic wall with horizontal slats – it could be a really neat background for photos?!? Salvaged, reclaimed or repurposed wood and materials are “all the rage” right now. No, but seriously – it’s the right thing to do as opposed to sticking it in a land fill. Repurposed items can be done really well if you take your time. I’ve been studying so much about what our future in design is and what we can do in steps – what can I do in steps. Where must I take that first step to do something on my own to show that I don’t only have a brain to think about these things, I have the physical ability to complete the task as well.
Then it hit me. Build a table. My friend Brant, my wife, and I love the concept of communal dining and have talked about it often. A proper table was yet to exist. If I was willing to de-nail, cut, fit, and attach all those boards to a garage wall, then surely I have the patience to step it up a little further and build a table – and depending on supplies, benches to boot. It will be rustic and classic, weather ready, and able to travel. Character: pre-installed! This will be a fantastic project: not your ordinary DIY, but building for a purpose and a use. And meanwhile, I’ll document the hell out of it!
I am presented with a problem: a garage filled with old shitty decking. My solution: make a place for friends to eat. I love it, let’s do this.
So the longest piece of solid material I had removed from the old deck was a 2×8, just shy of ten feet long. In a project like this you use the materials you have to determine it’s size. With a 1.5″ overhang on either end, I have a perfect 10 ft length. I only had one piece of that length and size. I needed this thing to be strong and sturdy as I do NOT want it to have any center leg supports. I will rip the board in half and get a damn sturdy beam out of it. I ran out and purchased an average table-saw blade for $20 and a 5 pound box of screws for $15. (So far I’ve saved $2 if I were to just take it to the dump.) The rest of the structure came from scabbed pieces of 2×4 that came from the build in deck benches. The frame is just shy of 10 ft by just shy of 3.5 ft. AND it’s perfectly square. That was no easy feat by myself – putting in those 45〫corner supports made a world of difference. My dog was no help, by the way. All he ever does is watch. *shakes head
It’ starting to come together nicely. I have a nice stack of runners a little longer than 42″ so I can trim them later. The garage is becoming a nightmare – even though there are wood scraps, rusty nails, tools and saw dust everywhere, the dog is not deterred from constantly staying in my way.
I have the boards all laid on, just need to get them secured.
Flipping this beast over was no easy feat. I did recruit my wife for that. This table will definitely never blow away.The cage on my circular saw is 1 3/16 wider than my blade – I simply ran the saw down both edges so every piece was uniform – leaving a perfectly square table that was 10 ft by 3.5 ft right on the nose.
While demo-ing the old deck, I saved all the old lag bolts that were holding together the built in benches. This was partially because I am a pack-rat and have a hard time throwing stuff out, and partially because in the back of my head I kinda knew I was going to be doing this.
Those damn legs are solid as hell. Basic 4×4 beams that came from the built-in deck benches – in each leg I have 2 five inchers and 2 three inchers. There was no way the cordless drill was going to get the bolts in – even with the power drill I was not able to ratchet them in all the way and had to resort to more “traditional” methods of wrenching them in.
It’s done! The legs were 29″ to make an even 30″ table. Not too shabby if I say so myself. I’m pretty proud of that.
But I am left with a pretty serious mess. Oh well.
So after the table was built, I still had a pretty giant pile of lumber left so it was time to noodle out a few other ideas and experiments. I toyed with the idea of the benches having backs, but getting out during a meal could pose a problem. I really wanted to try to build a chair with a back though. I took it as a side challenge. So I took some notes and got to work.
I based my measurements off this old set of chairs we have. They were my wife’s grandmothers. We have a set of four, all carved slightly different, and matching antique oak table. I stubbornly decided to step it up and add arms. Great, my first attempt at seating and I decide to make it as complicated as possible. The result: I don’t like it. I tried to add a 5〫angle to the seat bottom and the back, but it wasn’t enough. And it’s a little narrow. I wear a 34″ waist and barely fit. Brant said it would make a great lifeguard chair – and the wife said it reminds her of an electric chair. I will not be making a matching partner for that lovely chair.
Time for the benches. I clearly have plenty of wood – I needed a design and dimensions. I had an idea of what I wanted, I just needed a little detail on them. I originally was going to do 9 foot benches, but again, scooting in and out during a meal might be a little too much work. With the help of a well timed beer with friends, and a small tape measure in my pocket, a new local brewery with a similar concept gave me the final dimensions for width (15″), height (17.5″), and length (53″) – variations on the brewery’s size.
Another decision is how did I want the ends to look. I drew up three ideas, partial inspiration from the brewery. I settled on the middle design…….
….but when I actually ran my first test, I decided “forget that, it looks frickin sweet with no cut-out!” So I opted for the nice chunky, solid look. I am very happy with that.
Did I mention that my garage is filled with rusty nails and boards ominously glaring at me, screaming, begging, for me to step on one of them? See this one particular 3″ beast here? I’ll get a little closer, so you can see the rust, and closer yet so you can see the dirt and grime on it. Well, this one got me, good. I felt it hit my heel bone. good times. Within an hour and a half I was in the docs office getting a hypodermic needle full of Tetanus Toxoid Conjugate (aka, a Tetanus shot) jammed into my right deltoid. Always a pleasure – pretty sure it had been 11 years since my last.
I took the pleasure in documenting my lovely shoe – a ten-year-old pair of running shoes that were my lawn mowing shoes for the last six years. Needless to say they were broken down a bit. Man, when that thing pierced it hurt like hell. It was instant punch in the gut, felt like vomiting, kind of pain. When I picked my foot up, the other end of the board caught so it pulled out. I moved so damn fast when it happened, not sure my reaction time was ever that fast out of the blocks when I was a national caliber NCAA DII sprinter back last decade. I real quick peeled off the shoe while I was standing there – standing on one foot, off balanced, moaning in agony, cursing like a sailor, in a sea of more boards like the one I just got in a fight with – and I saw just as the hole started to run dark red blood. at that point I grabbed my heal in an effort to pull my ankle higher so I could get a better look at the wound – but when I squeezed the back of my heel, it caused a stream of blood to literally squirt a 12″-15″ inches away. I’m home alone mind you – and at this point I say out loud, “Oh fuck this is serious!” I didn’t even bother to say ‘eff,’ I said ‘fuck.’ And I meant it, damn it. I sort of one-foot hopped out of the pile of boards and started towards the house, getting blood on the drive-way and I realize that to get into the house, I need to cross my big new beautiful deck that I just finished and I didn’t want to get it bloody – so I hobbled back to the pile, moaning, put my shoe halfway back on my bloody foot, and carefully crossed the deck. I successfully managed to get across the deck, through the house, and into the bathtub without bleeding on anything but my foot, hands, shoe and bathtub. I almost took a photo of my foot before I washed it – but I succumbed to the notion of needing to get all the rust flakes out of my body – stat. I called the wife to help me get a doc appt. set and she sort of freaked out worse than I did and left work to come take care of me. I’m pretty sure she panicked when I said “it squirted” and didn’t hear a word I said after that – hence the quick trip home.
Well, the doc said to just keep an eye on it. He gave me the shot and offered a script for an antibiotic in-case it gets infected, and sent me on my way. I washed the hell out of that thing so I opted to not fill the script. That was last Friday, it’s Thursday now and I’m fine, just a little bruised and tender. The next day, I was back to work to finish those benches, this time with a little thicker soled steel-toed boots.
Here’s a nice pile of 44 pieces of 16″ runners to my bench seats waiting to be ripped……
…and here they are after, all nice and pretty like.
Eleven boards per bench, time to get them screwed down!
Sometimes, when you’re lucky, you get views like this while you’re working on projects in the garage.
One done, lets get the edges trimmed on the other three and we’re done!
Okay, so it’s done, but I don’t quite think it looks complete. So I measure, cut, and prep a few more pieces and….
Short benches for the heads of the table! Yeah!
Now it’s complete, and I think it looks fantastic.
I love all the variation in the grains, and I frickin love the look of the bench legs. I am so so glad I opted to not cut the notches out.
Lot’s of great textures.
You’ll notice that I’m done – and I still have a big-ass pile of old deck boards in my garage…
Hmm, maybe I’ll attach the remainder of the boards to the unfinished wall in my garage……
But seriously, I really like the way the benches turned out, especially the short benches. I may just make a half dozen more of those things. They would be great for around the yard and in gardens and what not.
Over-all, I’m thrilled how all of this turned out, despite the “pain,” haha. It looks like a simple project but it still had its share of complications and I got through all of them. It’s rewarding, as silly as it may be, to see my old deck repurposed and used in a functional setting. The only parts of this table and chairs that did not come off my old deck, are the wood screws holding on the tops. This pine could have ended up in a landfill, but instead it ended up almost exactly where it had been the last 15 years. I won’t keep this beast of a table and benches on the deck all the time, but it will definitely serve its purpose over the coarse of this summer. Stay tuned for another post where the table is in action. Next on my list is to arrange a nice dinner on this thing – I think we can get 14 people around it no problem.
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