Table for 12

Well, Thanksgiving (of the Canadian variety) and Halloween are now well behind us. While many of my fellow Canadians turn their minds towards Christmas, we are preparing ourselves for Thanksgiving Round 2! Normally we celebrate back in Massachusetts with B's family, but after all of the travelling and money spent this past year, we decided to spend this one at home. B has taken the day off from work and we'll be hosting our own Thanksgiving dinner for a group of friends. In order for this to be successful, B has been working to finish off our big huge, DIY dining table for our massive dining room. Remember, this big empty blank canvas?

Well, after months of work we've finally filled it up. So what was our plan of action? Instead of using this one small area that the builder defined as a dining space, we wanted to fill the whole room so we could have all of our friends over for dinner and meals whenever we wanted. 

Unfortunately, it was not in our budget to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful new table. Instead, B decided to use some wood he had to make us a big solid table. 

When I had arrived back from my two month trip to Toronto/Scotland/Boston for our wedding, honeymoon and my friends wedding, B had the table all mocked up. He spent a lot of time measuring, cutting, sanding, drilling, etc. to get everything just right. His Dad even helped with the drill press while they visited in October. They had to drill 7 equally spaced holes through each of the 7 wood beams that became our table top. 

Why? Well, B used threaded steel rods through each of those beams to reinforce and hold the table together. Let me tell you, that is one solid piece of furniture.

Oh - they also chiseled out the boxes that our metal clamps fit into that secure the threaded rods. It was a labour of love - but man does it look really, really good!

We even saved money on the stain we picked. The RONA close to our home was closing, so I popped in with B's parents while they were visiting and checked out the stains. Everything was 50% off at the time, and we found the last can of the perfect brown stain that cost us roughly $7 for a quart. Not bad at all. It even worked out that it almost perfectly matches our ammunitions crate wine rack (we bought that at the One of a Kind Show Christmas Show back in 2009 - they are no longer available as the couple who made these used up their supply of ammunitions cases! We cherish that piece). 

I'm going to have to leave more of the details to B, as only he could best describe all of the time, energy and dedication he put into building this beauty. We are both so thrilled every time we look in our newly filled dining room, and I feel so lucky to have a man who uses his spare time to build incredible furniture (this is the second piece he's built. You can peek the desk he built here and here. I'm sure I'll share a full office reveal with the huge desk he built me before the new year). So, enough of the chit chat - here she is. Our new 12 foot dining table...

It was quite the event moving it into the house. B and our friend were able to move the base straight in and upstairs from the garage relatively easily. We called in another helper for the table top, which had to be brought in through the back yard and involved me following along with the saw horses for when they needed to rest. They worked hard, and we paid with beer and pizza, which we enjoyed at the new table. Of course, they are also invited to the big Thanksgiving dinner as well. 

So what's next in this space? Of course more chairs, a chandelier and some sort of artwork on those empty walls. Those are top of my list... but of course tough to solve with our tight budget. Also, as much as I would love to paint, I think that project will fall to the back burner for a bit as it will involve more than just painting this room. We would like to add a built in to that niche in the wall, and move the too small for that space book case into our living room. 

So, still a space that is far from done, but so much better with our beautiful new table in place. We are almost ready to host our big dinner on the 28th!