Tin Topped Farmhouse Table

    I'm writing this post mainly to dispel the possible idea of me knowing exactly what I'm doing, a serene vision of productivity.

     It all started with me and Stefanie, Crystal, and Debbie scavenging through Stefanie's barns. Stefanie and Debbie had fun for about 2 hours, then they were out. Crystal and I continued for quite awhile longer, and had such fun rummaging through decades of forgotten bits of farm life. I found a cool old piece of tin in a turkey barn loft and decided to make a table to fit under it.
 I had already run across Ana White's website (awesome!!) and I picked out a plan. Now, the plan was for a slightly bigger size, so I had to shrink it down.  This entailed such math skills that I could feel Mr. Kalich and Mrs. Krnavek shaking their heads at me.  Finally I got it figured out and built, but I was so nervous about the drawer I just did a false front.

halfway done:

my helpers:
 I had to run to Home Depot 3 different times for this project, each time with 3 urchins.

The bottom was supposed to look like this:

I finally, after about 2 hours of trying to figure it out with various widths and combinations of wood (because I was NOT going back to Home Depot for one.more.thing), gave up and put slats on it.  Notice the two liquids on top.  One is vinegar and steel wool, one is black tea.  I figured that I would pickle and stain it before painting, since I was painting with milk paint, which don't adhere great and would flake off nicely in parts exposing the dark wood.  So I did.  And then I painted.  And the paint stuck.  I had to sand to distress, down to bare wood, so then I swiped the whole thing with a Minwax stain.  Good grief.  This project was now 5 days in the making.

And what are my children doing all this time?  Blake and Seth are pretty decent, but Cullen is trying to ruin us all at the moment, so that means he could not be unsupervised for one second.  So if I worked on it during the day, Cullen was right there playing on my phone, creating art like below, and serving me up a bevy of pretend food.  I cannot tell you how many pretend pizzas, muffins, brownies, and fish that workshop has seen.  All of which must be carefully eaten and enjoyed.  Which I gladly do.

 

The metal on top is easily twice as thick as what you would normally hammer on top, so I used liquid nails, and carpet tacks on the edges, and a ton of hammering the edges down!  I was incredibly sore the next day.  So to sum up, if I did the exact project again it would take me half the time.  I did learn a ton and I love the final product.  If I had room to put it anywhere, I probably wouldn't have sold it!

See those decorative vertical cuts on the front?  My awesome new saw did that.  I can adjust how far down the blade can go and make cool decorative cuts.  I'm in love.