Table and Chairs, Plus a Little Learning about Christmas

This last weekend, Chris and I finished up our breakfast bar/dining table and stools. I don't have any pictures of us making the table (regret! I worked that chop saw, and there is no photo evidence to prove it!) But I managed to snap a few while we were making staining the stools, and I took a few after shots of the table. The lighting is really bad, and you can't really see the detail and color right, but you get the idea. 

 

We got the stools from a little furniture shop in downtown Provo. They sell unfinished furniture...it is the cutest little store, and it was perfect for us because we wanted our stools to match our table, but we didn't want to have to make stools...according to Chris, they are a pain to get all of the angles right and make sure the legs are level.

 

So, we sanded them down (they were stamped with "made in mongolia" I think Chris disliked the idea of it telling everyone that he didn't make them....anyway, they are smooth and soft now).

And applied our first coat of stain. It's a dark brown...soo pretty, but you can't really see the color here. There is a lot of graining and fun different highlights in real life. Like I said, poor quality photos, but they're all I've got.

 

Chris gets really focused when he is "doing his crafts" ...He doesn't really like to be photographed, and you can forget about posing. But it's okay...I love his look of intense concentration. So cute!

 Since it is a bar, it doesn't have legs. We have 3 brackets that we've spray painted, and we are going to use them to screw the table into the 40" wall in our tiny apartment. So, for this picture, I just put our table on top of my kitchen table now, so you can get the idea of what it will look like. (side note: I highly recommend making tables for awkward room layouts. Cambridge Court is lovely, but it is NOT table-friendly. We've seen a few apartments, and the tables are either barely there, or take up way too much space and make it difficult to squeeze in between rooms. But if you make your own table, you can measure the space you've got and decide exactly what size you want and how it will fit into the room. Ours is perfect for the tiny space--it is exactly the length of the wall we are putting it on, and since it is a bar it doesn't come out too much. Also, we won't be tripping over chairs, because the stools can slide under the bar. Bonus: we got to pick the stain, the kind of wood we wanted, and the design of the edges.)

 We used molding for the table edges--much easier than a router, and less expensive. We stacked two pieces on top of each other. The top one has a vine and leaves carved into it, and the bottom one is just a simple curvy kinda thing. It makes it look so fancy and cool! When we make more furniture in the future, like bookcases and headboards and stuff, we are definitely going to use molding.

 Show and tell! I asked him to stand still and smile...not quite what I was envisioning, but this is much, much better. So sassy.

 ...and then he just started going over the top. Ever danced with a table? Chris has.
Also, we painted our Christmas Santas! They turned out way better than I thought they would. They don't look much like the ones I remember from my childhood, but not everything in our family will be like it was in the families we were raised in, and  I like these, because they are ours...we painted them together while we ate omelets and toaster strudel, and gossiped about Griffeth's engagement. I've finally stopped looking for the exact nativity we had when I was little, and for the "O Holy Night" Snow globe. Christmas will not be how it was at home in Michigan, and that's okay! Our Christmases will be wonderful BECAUSE they are different, and because we have blended our two families traditions and added some spice of our own. Anyway, here is how our Santas turned out:

Aren't they darling?!