New Patio Table!

It is such a beautiful week, it feels like summer is here!  I hear it is supposed to cool off tomorrow so I am going to enjoy today. Last weekend was a busy weekend. We had a garage sale and got rid of a LOT of stuff, it felt so good. Just waiting for Easter Seals to pick up the rest so we can park in the garage again.  My parents came to help with the kids during the sale so of course we put my Dad to work. He is an awesome wood worker and likes to stay busy, so we try to find projects when we can. We really needed a new patio table and decided to build our own. I have seen tables on Pinterest and the WWW and when I found plans on Ana White's blog  I knew we were all set.

Here is our pile of wood for the table, not to bad. We decided to use cedar hoping the table would hold up better outside. I went to Menards and picked up the wood and had them make all the cuts, Ana's plans give you a buy list and a cut list, it is awesome. One sales person said they only did 5 free cuts but when I got to the cut station they said they don't charge for cuts. Bonus for me! (notice all the cars in the background? Lots of people garage saleing, it was crazy!)

 The whole tutorial is on Ana White's blog here. She has amazing plans on her blog. We made a couple of changes to the table. We wanted the table to seat 8 people so we added 18 inches to the length. We also decided to use 4x4's instead of 2x4's for the legs, we liked to look better and thought it would be more stable since it was longer.
Here is my awesome Dad with the frame complete.

 Here is the table complete! The Hubs and my Dad finished it in one afternoon.

Now it is my turn to stain. Just like paint colors I don't like picking out stain colors. I try to stay away from too red or too orange and I end up with brown. I do like it though, I just wish it looked a little richer. The stain color we used was light mocha, it is a Pittsburgh semi transparent stain and sealant in one.

 Here it is all stained up. I love it! plenty of room for everyone to sit and room for guests.

Next up, the bench that matches!

Tammy