waxing table

I agonized over this table.



I had been looking for a harvest table (read, humongous table) to seat the hordes that tend to want to feed here during family events. Having been raised with mahogany, I wanted rustic. As in, gravy-spills-are-okay rustic. As in, I-don't-want-to-freak-out-like-my-mother-did-during-holiday-dinners rustic. At druid labs, we like furniture that will hold up to water marks and feet. The one and only criteria we insist upon for a coffee table, for instance, is that it must invite the feet, shod or not. Decorum? Hardly knew him.

Our furniture runs toward Mission style or Arts and Crafts, not that we have a style or anything. It's just what we like, and what we can't really afford. This Basque dining table from Crate and Barrel looked like just the ticket. I didn't like the price, though. And there isn't a Crate and Barrel within 70 miles of here. Since I couldn't picture me at the Short Hills Mall and I wasn't going to buy a table I never saw, I just put it out of my head.

Then I went to Illinois to visit my girlfriends. Lynn is always ready to spend my money, so she dragged me to Oak Brook Center (perhaps a notch beneath Short Hills, since Jackie O never, at least to my knowledge, shopped there) where I could see the table. Only they didn't have the big one, but just the small one. So off we went to the scratch'n'dent outlet center, where indeed they had a large table at half the price!

Cool! Except that one leg was about five inches shorter than the others, and the top was warped beyond usefulness. In any case, I approved of the table, and having searched for harvest tables elsewhere, I realized the price was very reasonable indeed. Tropical hardwood and all. Mango, I think. I ordered one. It got delivered July of last year, I think, and has been used for painting projects, tapestry-hanging projects, and meals.

Well, it was time for a wax job. The top is suitably wavy and irregular. If you've seen the Thanksgiving pictures you've seen the underside of the table. Well, this is a monster. It's a little bigger than an entire sheet of plywood. I believe I went through half a can of paste wax this afternoon. Now hobbitt wants to play air hockey on top.

And you know what? That's fine. If you can't have fun with it or on it, I don't want it.