Turning ‘a table’ into ‘A Table.’

I am no stranger to industrial furniture.

In fact, I own several pieces from fs20 in Asbury Park — one of my favorite stores — including this fabulous coffee table:

It was made by an artist in the midwest, whose designs are frequently ripped off by Restoration Hardware certain large, chain stores that will not be named here.

I love industrial furniture so much, I decided to try my hand at creating my own.

Here, we have Exhibit A: a Boring Table.

It formerly resided in Belmar, at my cousins’ house. There, it was (presumably) a kitchen-island-type piece of furniture. Here it is again:

OK, I admit it – I only included this second photo of Boring Table because my pretty car was in the background.

Annnyyyyway, back to Boring Table. It spent several years at my uncle and aunt’s house in Brielle, where it had a lovely view of a local body of water rumored to be home to a ghost. For the sake of some anonymity, let’s say the ghost is named ‘Marge.’ Marge was married to a sea captain, who went out on a voyage and never returned. Each night, Marge would wander the banks of what is today ‘Marge’s Creek,’ lantern in hand, searching for the captain.

He never returned.

To this day, Marge can still be seen wandering the banks of the creek, lantern swinging, whenever there is a full moon high tide.

[Editor’s note: This may or may not be fictitious. I have never actually seen Marge, though I have seen the mythical Sea Beast with my own eyes — a post for another day.]

Moving on, Boring Table recently came into my possession. I decided to create a Steampunk-esque, industrial piece I have dubbed a ‘library table.’ Once the renovations in the downstairs room of my house are complete, the library table will reside near a wall of bookshelves. I shall call it ‘Franklin.’

This brings us to Exhibit B:

As well as Exhibit C:

Boring Table needed to be stripped down. In Exhibit B, we clearly see the type of varnish/stain on Boring Table. It was very light. Thanks to my best friend favorite stripper, ZipStrip, it was the easiest strip job I have ever embarked upon. Seriously. I Have stripped down some very difficult pieces with multiple layers of varnish/paint/stain/etc., and Boring Table was a one-coat deal — the best kind.

[Editor’s note: I seriously, seriously recommend ZipStrip for all your stripping needs. Just the right gel-like consistency — not too watery, and only burns a little — read, a lot — when it sticks on your skin as you work.]

Within just several hours, Boring Table was well on the way to becoming Franklin.

Once Franklin started to appear, it quickly became apparent that the distressed look was the way to go. So, I got to work. The first order of business was sawing off the edges of the top of Franklin, so it would appear many, many hands had brushed against him in his long life which, naturally, mostly occurred in any one of these libraries.

While that is all fine and good, a more smooth edge was necessary to mimic the hands of time.

It took work to get that fine edge — elbow grease and an electric sander.

BREAK for a brief Public Service Announcement:

The safety glasses on my head should clearly be on my eyes, children. Heed my words — wear safety glasses as they are supposed to be worn, and avoid the possibility of serious injury. Meanwhile, I will continue on in my unsafe, safety-glasses-less state.

/PSA

Once that was done, it was time to further distress Franklin. He forgave me for repeatedly beating him with hammers, dropping large objects on him, sawing into his sides and creating man-made wormholes with the help of an awl and sharpened chisel.

Much rough-grit sandpaper later, it was time for the first coat of stain: Minwax Early American. Later, Jacobean and Ebony would be used for accent colors [more on that, well, later].

Franklin was looking damn good, if I may say so myself.

Wormholes and similar abounded.

Far from being finished, though, Franklin still had much distressing, staining and — get excited! — hardware to go.

Check back later [so, like, at least a few days] for updates.