And a strip of walnut in the center and now that just becomes part of the design feature even from the outside it just looks really cool. So someone who does not know any better might come out and look at this and go, “Oh! Interesting choice there.” It really was not a choice at all it was a way to get myself out of the bind. Now here is another thing for the top itself, I stressed over that for a while, I finished it and then had to strip it down and re-finish it. I was not happy with way is coming out. It was either too blonde or I round up going too dark.
So, I would say, I think the guys in the chat room that particular day that watched me do this saw me go through this about two or three times until I finally arrived at the result that I wanted. But two things came out of that: number one, the top now has a lot of depth. It has got, you know, sort of more going on, it almost looks older than it really is. And the reason is because the stain or the dye actually that I used have penetrated so deep that even that I re-finish it and pull it off, there were still some that sat in the really, really deep pores. But what that actually did was made the piece look older than it was, a little worn, a little earthy, for lack a better term than that. And I liked that. I think it works really well with this, sort of tree branch looking legs. I think it fits the theme really well. The other thing that I did was because I had to sand it down so many times it actually thinned the top down a lot more than my original top.
Now let me show you, this is my back-up piece that was going to—this was going to bail me out if I screw that up enough. Okay. It is another piece of figured maple and look how thick it is. Now that thickness, this is the same as with what this one is originally. I do not think that it would have looked right, I think would have been to heavy, to substantial of the top and I think it would have been a mistake and once it is glued in place, there is not a whole lot I can do about that.
So, what wound up being, you know, really a day of hell trying to get this thing to look to the way I wanted it to look. It turned out to create a situation that actually improved the piece and now when I stand back and I look at the proportions, you know, this is a little bit closer to half inch, probably a little proud of a half inch. I am really, really happy with how thin that top is, I think it just lightens up the little bit.
So, again this is just me describing how I work. This may not work for everybody but I honestly have come up with so many creative ideas that people think that was part of the master plan when in fact it was a solution to a problem. Now, a couple weeks ago I was talking with Neil over at Furnitology and he requested that I take the time to discuss what I may have done differently on this and that is an extremely valuable thing to do and I am more than happy to do it because in a piece like this you do learned a lot of lessons and you really—you will challenge yourself big time. And if you go through of piece furniture that you are building for your self to sort of broaden your scope of skills and you do not feel like you are challenged. You did not sweat the entire time. You did not have a couple sleepless nights trying to figure out, what the heck you were going to do.
Then I am thinking, I do not want to say that you wasted your time that all. I mean it is still practicing your building skills but I think you do need to challenge your self and if you are not, you are not really pushing the limits, okay. So, if you know, if you do not step out comfort zone. You will never really going to be learn and a lot of times I found the best way to learn quickly is to go head first and throw yourself right in the fire and you know what does not kill makes as stronger that all concept.
So, the things that I would do differently and this piece: first of all, this will size to fit in a particular place in my house were there is not a lot of room and needed to be, kind of a compact form here. What I would do is probably make the stance a little wider, make the table a little taller. I want more space in between these legs. There is points when look at it that visually the legs are too crowded. I probably would lengthen the stretcher piece here to give me a little bit more space there. Visually like I have said, when I step away from it, there is certain angle that I see it that it looks okay. But then are other ones that I see it I am like “Ah, wish there was a little bit more room to play with there.” So, that might be the first thing that I would do is broaden that stance a little bit.
You know secondly--…
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