My Hubby is Awesome | Our New Coffee Table

I shared last week that my hubby’s hobby is building furniture. A long time ago, close to 20 years now, he built a Shaker style coffee table with a maple top and painted poplar legs. (Way back when we built it, we could just barely afford the maple for the top, hardwood for the legs would have been out of reach).

Here’s a picture of it in the family room last summer:

Yup, the legs are my favorite – chartreuse! What you can’t see from the picture is that the legs are barely attached – a visiting kid sat on the table a year ago and broke all the joints. Andrew glued it as best as he could, but the bottom really needed to be replaced.

One thing we used to do when we lived in Kentucky is go to estate auctions, often times they would auction off piles of hardwood from the workshop of the estate. Most often those piles would end up selling at close to market value, which was out of our budget, but once in awhile, a pile wouldn’t get bid up too high and we would snag it! So, there’s some cherry that was cut in Kentucky like 50 years ago, and a few of those pieces are thick enough that Andrew could shape some nice legs without having to glue thinner boards together. And so, he started working on a new bottom for the coffee table during Christmas vacation and it’s done!

We both really love furniture made with more than one wood species. Maple and cherry pair so well together because they both have a tight grain. Usually, cherry starts out quite light, almost pink, and over a few years of exposure it darkens to that more traditional deep cherry red. Well, when cherry is 50 years old, that chemical reaciton to turn the color dark has already happened deep into the wood, so the legs are already a glorious contrast to the light maple.

Stirling was very confused about it being in the middle of the back yard!

It looks quite nice in the family room too!

I love the shape of the legs!

Yes, this room is coming together, and I have the best hubby ever!