Double Project: One for me and One for him

It all started with Jack Daniels.

Well, a Jack Daniels barrel, really.

For Father's Day last year I wanted to get The Hubs the perfect gift - something he wanted but he wouldn't buy for himself. I finally decided on a Jack Daniels barrel for his man cave. He could fix it up into whatever he wanted, and according to Pinterest, there were a lot of options.

He chose to turn it into a pub table. All he needed to finish the project would be a base to raise it to pub table height, and a glass top. After searching online, he finally decided to fashion a base together using piping, to create an industrial feel.

I would go into detail about he fashioned this base, but I have no idea. Oops.

The glass top took a little longer to find, but a few weeks later he finally found one at Pier 1 for $100.

Hours before he left to buy it, I searched online and found the exact size he needed on OfferUp for $10. Score!

It may not look like much, but I have a vision!

Even better? The perfect sized glass top was actually a coffee table and was attached to a steel framed bottom that I wanted to use for my own project. Double score!

All he had to do was drive halfway across town (Okay, so I might have thought it was in a closer city than it was and he might have driven almost 45 minutes to get it, but....whatever!) and load it up. The glass came off from the bottom part easily, and all he had to do to finish his pub table was place the glass on top and buy some bar stools. Easy and looks spectacular in his man cave!

My project was next.  I had seen how to make a pallet coffee table online and decided to tweak the picture to better fit my style. I had at first wanted to ask my neighbor to weld me the legs for the table, but it turned out that he frame on the OfferUp coffee table was exactly what I needed!

First up, I grabbed one of our pallets that I keep around just for projects like this. I looked for the one that was in the best shape. Unlike most of my other pallet projects, I wouldn't be using just the pallet wood, but the actual pallet itself. I needed the whole thing to be pretty.

I had The Hubs saw the pallet down about 3/4 of the way. This happened to be where on the underside there was a curve, and this made it even on both sides. That left me with five boards on top and gaps in between.

We took a few boards off the remaining 1/4 of the pallet, and combined with a few others we had lying around, we were able to fill in the gaps to make a complete table top.

Whoa. Talk about uneven!

You can tell from the picture, it was pretty uneven, which is not what you want when you're putting your drink on it! The Hubs grabbed his planer and began planing it down. A few minutes later and we had a relatively even top.

I grabbed the sander and went to work. I've worked with many a pallet and the worst part for me are the splinters. Since this was going to be an outdoor table, used by kids and adults alike, I wanted there to be no splinters whatsoever. If you had been around for the Great Camping Splinter Incident of 2015, you would understand. I still have trauma from the screams.

It was at this point that I decided to tried to push my luck with the frame.  On the legs was an awful particle board/fake wood veneer piece.

UG-LEE!

The first time I pressed on it, it wouldn't move, and I thought maybe I would have to texture and chalk paint it. But today I was feeling lucky and I went at it with a hammer.

Success!

After a few minutes of solid hammering, I had popped out all four ugly fake wood pieces and transformed the frame even more.

I was content to leave it as is, but The Hubs the perfectionist convinced me to add two larger wood pieces on either open end to cap off the table. In my pallets, there were two different sized slats. One size fit on the top of the table, the other fit perfectly to finish off the side ends. Don't tell The Hubs I said this, but it did look better his way. He also convinced me to stain it. Multiple times. Ugh.

I hate staining because I hate waiting the required time between coats.

The first three layers worked great with a stain that deepened the pallet wood and allowed the different colors shine through. I was actually getting into this staining, waiting and re-staining process. The fourth layer was a minor setback, though, as I grabbed the the wrong stain and turned my beautiful pallet top a shade of brownish-orange. Oops.

I wound up not being able to completely get rid of the orange top, even with repeated sandings, so I followed up with a deeper stain. It took away some of the color variety I had loved, but seeing as the orange had seeped into the grayer pieces, darker was what needed to be done.

After I was satisfied with the stain, I followed up with a few layers of tung oil to provide an extra layer of protection to the wood from spills and sun.

I was ready to finally have a finished piece and frankly, was tired of doing things the right way, so I fully intended to zip-tie the leg frames to the bottom side of the pallet piece. The Hubs knows my reputation for getting bored with projects though, so he grabbed the coffee table and secured it properly to the bottom with screws.

Here is a view of the finished coffee table in my patio sitting area. Love!!!

A table big enough for everyone to use!

I thought about cleaning up for this pic, and then thought....Nah....

Home Sweet Home!

A Pallet Sign

Remember all those pallets we had lying around that we didn't use for the Man Cave Wall?  I finally had The Hubs take two of them apart so I could use the boards for projects. Because I didn't have enough projects already half finished......

I decided to start with a pallet sign for Bjorn's room. For years, I have wanted a sign in his room with a particular quote, and since I knew I could make one, I had put off buying it.

Time to git 'er done.

I started with three pallet wood strips. I sanded them down by hand, trying to preserve their wood look, but still taking out all the splinters and roughness. I had to hammer down a few nails, too.

Then I grabbed my ever-faithful chalk paint (to see my first try with chalk paint, go here), this time in primitive gray, and mixed it 1:1 ratio with water. I was hoping for a whitewash finish, to see some of the wood underneath. I will have to tweak the formula a little, for it was still a little too thick for my taste. It was less a whitewashing and more of an all-out painting.

Americana Decor chalk paint. From Home Depot, I think?

I struggled as to how I would put the writing on the piece. Should I have a friend print it on her vinyl printer? Should I hand paint and wing it? I finally decided to print off the quote on my cheap-o printer for tracing. I chose a random font and text size (Times New Roman, 150 font size) and printed away.

Pretty high-tech, eh?!

Once the paint was dry (Which, seriously, took less than an hour - I LOVE chalk paint!), I taped it to the wood. I had to move it around a bit to get the spacing and centering right, and I could have used a ruler, but I don't mind imperfection. Then I took something sharp to etch the letters into the wood. I started with a pencil, but that broke from how hard I needed to press down.. I finally settled on an unclicked ballpoint pen, which worked great. With a faint outline able to be seen on the wood, I was ready to paint.

The hardest part of painting the letters was getting the paint into the nooks and crannies of the wood. It's not a smooth surface, and it took sometimes three coats of tracing in order to get all the niches filled in. But I'm very happy with my first try.

The first of three small pieces to secure along the back

Next, I cut down another piece of pallet piece into smaller pieces to attach to the back of the sign. This allows all three pieces to stay together, and gives me something to hang a wall mount onto. The most important part of this step is to find a nail that is LONG ENOUGH to go through both pieces of wood but not TOO LONG that it comes out on the front side of the sign. It needs to be secure without marring the look.

Strong words. 

When my Hubs gets home, he will hang it in Bjorn's room (And I'll add an updated wall picture then.) I am not allowed to hang things anymore. Something about when we moved the last time and he found the six silver dollar sized holes I had conveniently hidden behind our wall shelves. In my defense, it's hard to hit the exact spot right every time. Or every six times.

Oh, yes. We rock a lava lamp.

While the quote comes from A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh series, so it can be considered babyish to some, I find it applicable for a 6 year old.  Even at six, in the first grade, he struggles with peer pressure, and with academic pressure. He is caught between a little boy and a big kid. This is a reminder to him each day that he is so much more than he thinks he is, that he can do and be something bigger. It says that I believe in him. I believe in his ability to do great things and be a great person.