Furniture Shopping

There’s my dining room table. In a giant wood pile stacked inside a barn in Sumrall, Mississippi. It’s going to be the most beautiful farm table ever made!

Ernie and I have chatted about building a dining room table for quite some time and 2 weeks ago I came upon a listing on Craig’s list for Rough Cut Oak. I inquired, phone calls were exchanged, and today we became the proud owners of 200 board feet of beautiful Red Oak. The wood came from oak trees that were toppled during Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. The owner had the trees milled, hauled to his barn, and then stacked where they have been sitting for the last 5 years.

It was a surprise when the owner opened the barn and we all realized that in order to get to the wood that we were buying, a great deal of wood was sitting on top of it that would need to be moved. So the wood was moved by the men (thank you again Trinity for all of your help!!), while the kids ran around and explored, and I took pictures and generally enjoyed myself.

When we got home, Ernie took one of the boards and started it through his planer. You can see the look and color of the red oak in the pictures below. I cannot wait until we are all sitting around this beautiful table- making memories.

Little Ernie was immensely impressed by the whole process and commented that building this table was almost like we were “living in the woods and doing everything ourselves”. So here’s to imagining what it’d be like if we lived off the grid!