Project Cheops 2023-3

Roughly, I suppose, is completed.

This one was "The Table".  Back when Covid began, and we all started working from home, I started on the dining room table, with terrible seating arrangements, chairs, and the like.  When we completed moving my wife's office equipment upstairs, I repurposed my "big desk".  

Said big desk took initial design back in about 1991 when we moved into a two-bedroom apartment up on top of Buck Hill, then known as "The Observatory".  Our unit had a gorgeous view eastward, which meant a sunrise every morning.  Some were better than others, mostly because, well, I really wanted to be able to sleep late.  But when it became rather clear that we were not going to remain the sole occupants of our two-bedroom apartment, and I really rather desperately needed a personal computer of my own, I managed to talk my wife into that desk.  It was built primarily out of 2x4 lumber and plywood.  I measured a PC case, my forearms, and designed the desktop to be 36" deep, front to back.  The idea, at the time, was to be able to fully support my forearms on the desktop, place a keyboard in front of them, and then put the computer behind the keyboard, monitor on top, and have room in the back for "cable management". 

It worked, but when we moved into our house, a bonus furniture option appeared.  My wife's employer of the time was unloading some office furniture due to a move of offices, so I managed to pick up a "receptionist desk" a credenza, a beautiful office table, and a, well, a box.  Said "box" was about 40" square by about 16" tall - and no, it had no storage.  I guess it served as a sort of a coffee-table/end-table sort of thing.  

The desk frame I'd built remained in the garage.  Some ten years later, when we lost the house, we decided, unfortunately, to leave that monster desk in the basement.  We kept the credenza, but left the table too.  I'd built a table that backed up my monster desk and so that became my home work table.  It held, and still holds, my personal computer.

That other desk, though, saw life as a desk for my son.  It was something of a trash depository, but he also did manage to set up his video game systems on the desk.  Then his sister moved out, he got a girlfriend who, as it turned out, needed a place to live because she wanted to stay here, and her family was moving to Florida.  So they had upstairs bedrooms.

As previously noted, Covid hit, and we had just managed to set my wife up with a rather excessive home office for her scheduled one-day-a-week work from home day.  It worked very well when she became a "always work from home" person for a few years, like me.  We, however, managed to move me from the dining room into a corner of our bedroom, where her much smaller desk had been.  I'd placed my big desk, which had morphed into my son's desk with some additional workspace, back in that spot.  And it worked.

Then he went and married the girlfriend and decided there was another thing he needed to do - get a place of their own.  Which he did.  So I ended up relocating, one long weekend, from the basement to the now-spare bedroom.  But lacking the bookshelves and bed I had used for temporarily setting things, I needed a table.

My first design was to build something with what I've learned is called the "Castle Joint" - though it somehow comes from Asian woodwork.  Beams are notched to fit together, tightly, and they are loaded into legs where the tops are also notched to hold the whole thing up.  When our "Covid Money" lifestyle caught up to us and it turned out we were going to be paying more bills, that masterwork slipped by the wayside.  I've still got the woodworking show recorded where the fellow built the table out of solid walnut - six-by-six inch leg posts, two inch thick length beams and end cross-pieces, and a top that was glued up of 1 1/4" thick walnut slabs.  Short of winning the lottery, I will never own that much walnut, due to the rarity and cost.  But it was sure a beautiful table.

About six weeks ago I was wandering through Menards, a local home improvement store, on a Sunday morning.  I check most of their clearance sections, just to get ideas if I end up having needs.  My "reduced cost" big table was looking to come in around $120, maybe a bit more, depending on plywood costs, as I was going to need two sheets of $45 plywood - among other things.  But back in the Millwork department, I found the "junk doors" section.  These are doors that have not been gently handled, or had the misfortune of being on the bottom of a stack, or the losing side of a battle.  And in the middle of the stack I found a 1 1/4" thick solid core exterior door - weighed about 85 pounds - that was 36" wide, 80" tall, and ... well, a solid table top.  Mostly.

The big problem, aside from the fact that it had been bent right around where the doorknob hole was so badly that it was cracked, was that it was scratched and dinged.  That's what put it in the clearance section.  But for a table top, the inset panels, a full 1/4" below the frame, were going to make it difficult to use as a table top.

Unless I covered it with something else.

So as with many of my plans there's the ideal outcome, the hopefully this works, the well, I can live with it, the it'll do, and the "well, that was a total [bleeping] waste".  The bleeping adjective might change depending on the investment and if I can possibly salvage anything.

So I started with legs that looked like H - but that crossbar was going to be much lower so, If I needed to raise a foot depending on what new sort of stupidity I find, I could use it as a footrest.  Then I placed a solid beam between the two Hs to give me a full-length footrest, as the table itself is six feet eight inches long.  I might not be near an end when I needed it.  And it would provide some substantial support.

Then I figured I would engineer a below-the-top frame made out of 2x4 lumber.  Yes, the same size lumber they use building house walls.  I'm partial to it as it tends to offer substantial strength - far more than I might need under normal use, but I like solid.  

And this table sure as hell is.  We finished it this morning, putting the legs into the sockets of the under-frame, bolting them in with 3/8" bolts 4 1/2" long, two for each leg, and it's just about perfect.  

Now to cast about for the next project.  I expect it will be a Christmas present by, and with, my son's help, for his furry son, Finn, the now-kitten.  He'll get bigger, get two posts wrapped in rope where he can scratch, two posts made out of solid wood, where he can sharpen his claws, and seven floors - or a total of about five feet tall - with two completely enclosed rooms - one with a roof, one without - where he can go and hide, or do what it is cats do.  

I know, once I get real grandkids, I'm going to have real problems.  But the good kind.  Picking whether they get a motorcycle, an X-Wing, or a Landspeeder rocking horse...  Hey, a kid needs options.  Once they have a yard, an AT-AT Treehouse is not out of the question...