Sleeping on a Tabletop

Last night wasn’t quite as productive as I’d intended.

I didn’t remember to get everything I needed at Home Depot.  I started making cuts before really measuring, re-measuring, and making adjustments to the plan.  Then a MASSIVE storm hit and there were a couple of moments while Aggie and I were huddled on the couch with a glass of wine that we thought the world might actually be coming to an end.  Check out this video I took of our back patio area (I thought for sure a power line would snap):

Luckily there were few casualties in the garden and I think I was able to salvage everything with only a few things needing to be staked.

By the time I felt comfortable that the power wasn’t going to go out and got the courage to venture to the basement to work, I’d lost valuable time.  Regardless, it’s looking significantly more like a headboard and less like a tabletop.  For those of you that don’t regularly follow Post Grad, we decided to replace the tabletop for our dining room table and use the previous one as a new headboard.

The original plan came from Ana White.  If you’re not familiar with her plans, you absolutely must take a few moments to browse through them.  This plan was the Reclaimed Wood Headboard plan.  Instead of horizontal planks, ours would be vertical as that’s just how I’d made the original tabletop.

Image Source: Ana White

The process is pretty basic.  Nail a 1×2 to a 1×3 to create a ledge using 1 1/4″ nails.  Nail the planks to the ledge.  All the planks were screwed to each other using pocket holes as described here.  Then sandwich them between a second 1×3 and nail that down to everything using 2″ nails.  I left about 1/2″ overhang at the top since the boards weren’t lined up very even.  I’ll be able to cover that up with a top and bottom front face board making everything look like it lines up perfectly.

Since I’d incorrectly cut two of my 1×3′s in my haste to get everything cut before the worst of the storm hit, I didn’t have long enough boards to be the top and bottom face pieces.  Sad day.  So looks like Home Depot will be graced by my presence once again.  Not a bad start though.

I’ll share the fully modified plan and cut list when it’s all finished.