I learned a new lesson. Do not glue wood while tired. I figured that I would get a step up on the hall tree build and glue some boards together tonight. I wasnt thinking and didnt clamp the wood down to the bench before I drilled in the pocket holes and the wood drifted. I hate it when that happens. The good news is that the boards I glued together go behind the cubbys and nobody will ever really see them. Im hoping that I can just sand the hell out of them and even them up. Once again, this is the main reason I am using cheap wood. So I can make mistakes like this.
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?Now that the Hall Tree is done I could start working on the kids table again. I stained it on Saturday to match the Hall Tree since they will be in the same area. The stain came out a little blotchy in some areas. The directions on the stain say that it does not need any conditioner applied first and I had great results with all my tests on the Hall Tree. I bought the wood for the hall tree at Home Depot and the wood for the table was purchased at Lowes. I also sanded the table a couple of weeks ago. Im thinking that I should have re-sanded it the same day to open the pores a little more. I also should have found some scraps from the Lowes wood to test the stain on. I put one coat of poly on the bottom on the tabletop, let it dry for an hour, and then flipped it over and put a coat on the top. I am going to give it a light sanding tonight and then apply another coat on both sides. My goal is to have 2 coats on the bottom of the tabletop and the legs and frame and then 5 coats on the tabletop itself.
On a side note its still pretty neat to see the color pop when you add the poly.
?I lightly sanded the hall tree with 220 last night and applied a 3rd coat of poly. Even with being careful I managed to sand through the poly and some of the stain in a few spots. I have been trying to be careful to not make the coats of poly too thick and I think I have been making them a little too thin. I am leaving the light parts there for now as I think it gives it a little character. I was planning on putting a 4th coat on just the top shelf and seat but I think I am going to put an extra coat on the whole thing.
I am going to oversand some of my test pieces down to bare wood and see if I can put some brown stain on it and make it look weathered. If that turns out well I may redo some of the hall tree at a later date.
I planned on working on the table some more this last weekend but we got a last minute invite to bring the family out to Lake Havasu so we spent the weekend out there. I managed to carve out an hour on Friday while my 2 year old was taking a nap and do some sanding. This is the first serious sanding I have done on anything and I was amazed at just how long it actually took. Everything has now been sanded down to 120 grit. I am hoping to get the legs and aprons glued together this week and do some finish sanding and staining this weekend.
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