This summer I have been tackling a big outdoor living project at our house: rebuilding and expanding our front deck. I deconstructed the old one with the help of TheMisterT and a friend/neighbor. I’m still disassembling that (literal) heap of materials, but from what used to be stair treads, I made this little console-style table!
THere are pegs for TheMisterT to hand his tools from on the end by the grill…
and a towel bar on the other.
THis is is TheMisterT’s “kitchen” area of the new deck. The table is not the ideal height for a counter, but we were both really excited to not have to look at the back of the grill or a new table through that window any longer.
Gritty construction deets!
The boards were almost a full 2" thick x 9.75" wide and 48" long. I used four of them for this. They had been painted by the last owners with cheap barn red paint which I used stripper to remove a lot of, but the the lumber was rough-sawn with great saw marks and such from the mill which I wanted to keep. Getting the paint out of those depressions what just not happening with stripper, so I ended up sanding with 60grit paper. Luckily, the saw marks remained, but are barely textural.
I cut the ends of the top piece to have fresh, square ends. That set the overall width of the piece.
After cutting the side pieces to length I got to put my beloved table saw to use cutting dados for the shelf. My first “real” time with the super cool dado blades.
Then I stopped taking pictures along the way, but here it is ready to stain. You can see I did a rabbet joint to attach the top to the legs.
I used a deck/outdoor semi-transparent stain to tie it in to the other pieces on the deck. I am please with how the old lumber kept some of the rustic qualities and the shape of the table is not rustic in profile; I think that’s a good combo for our kind of sleek deck style on our rustic, chalet-esque house in the wilderness.