Outside Furniture
Cedar Table
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When the old Costco plastic table caught fire (don't ask how, its embarrassing) I found myself secretly joyful. I now could build the table I had been collecting lumber for. Over the last six years I had been spending a few evenings per month, on a regular basis, shuffling through piles and piles of the 2" x 6" x 10' cedar lumber at Home Depot. I must have handled a thousand boards looking for quarter sawn cedar lumber with no knots or at least enough distance between knots so that I could make a table. In all I found seven boards. They have been waiting patiently in the shed for this day.
I ran them through the plainer to resurface them. Then through the table saw crosscutting them to length and ripping them to width. I cut out spacers and shaped them rounded on the top looking like slices of loaf bread. The spacers are to keep enough distance between the boards so that water and debris can fall through. The spacers are positioned over the stretchers and shaped round on the top to shed water thereby keeping standing water off the stretchers, stopping them from rotting. I fashioned the three stretchers to hold the boards together and on which to mount the table legs that were generously donated by the old table. I used 18- 3" #10 wood screws to hold it all together. The spacers were attached with staples using the Porter Cable Narrow Crown Stapler. I used Benjamin Moore's out side oil stain. Teak and natural colors were used in an attempt to color match the wood. I can reapply this anytime to keep the top in good condition. The spacers were stained with a redwood colored stain providing a subtle punch to this detail.
The two trays were assembled from the cutoffs. They will serve to hold the tops of the Weber's and perform other duties, primarily to reduce damage and staining to the soft table top. They are built to match the table using three stretchers with chamfered ends. You can see the two tones of the lumber. The darker cedar is the board on the far left of the table top. If I could have found 100 of these, I would have bought them. I don't know what exactly I would have done with them, its just that its spectacular lumber. I would have found something to do with them. Sadly, I only found two.
I think this table will serve me well because I cook nearly every day in the summer outside on the Weber.
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