Preparing For Wood Class

Today the new carpenter finished replacing the deck off of the sunroom (aka the textile studio). He used pressure-treated 2X6's for the decking and now we'll let them dry and weather for a year before we sand and stain them. As he was showing me the deck he pointed out the pile of deck boards that he had taken off, and they were neither cedar nor pine--they were redwood! Almost all of the were rotted in one place or another, but there were definitely some parts of just about every board that could be salvaged and would make a nice table top if they were sanded or planed and cut down. Zaga and I are going to go through the pile tomorrow to pull out what we can use. Then we'll cut it into even pieces and get the last rusted screws out. I thought about cutting the screws flush and leaving them in as points of interest in the finished table top, but that wouldn't be a good idea if I wanted to run the boards through the planer.

The piece I want to do is a couch end table that becomes a lap desk/table when turned sideways over the arm of the couch. Something like the two shown here. My current end-of-the-couch furniture is a cabinet whose door fell off. The shelves are not accessible from the couch side so it's really just a side table when I'm on the couch. What I'd like to build is something that has accessible storage for spinning and knitting tools, a dedicated place for the remote controls, a built-in charging station, and which still swings over the arm of the couch for immediate, easy access. We'll see what I come up with tomorrow as I design it.

Current end table

It might also be nice to use some of the old decking for furniture for the new deck. I'm not up to making chairs just yet, but maybe a table, a bench and some planters. One way or another I'm going to save as much of the old wood as I can. There is absolutely no point in sending it to a landfill. The framing boards from underneath were in really good shape, but they had to be replaced as we changed the profile of the deck. They are 2X8's, though I'm not sure of what wood, and I'll be using them in something too.

Between the cedar trunks and limbs that the contractor cut this summer which are still lying in a pile in the yard and the old deck boards I can feel the beginning of wood hoarding coming on. However I am going to approach it just like I do with yarn and fabric now: What I have must be used in projects before I get more. Considering that I have a lot of outdoor furniture to build for the botanical garden and the various decks, I don't think that will be too hard.