It's done!

The dining room has a table again!

In December, my friend offered to refinish my scruffy old dining room table in exchange for a copy each of my DVD and CDs. Talk about an offer I couldn't refuse.

I didn't have much hope for the table. I got it at a yard sale one summer evening several years ago. I was on the way home from playing at a wedding near Springfield. I stopped at the sale on a whim just as they were shutting down, found the table for $100 and talked the guy into helping me wedge it into the back of my truck along with the concert harp, bench, stand and music. It was a squeezy and slow ride home.

The table was in rough shape, but I loved it. It had lots of beauty marks — dings, scrapes, chips, even an interestingly shaped blob of something on the top that looked like some serious glue. I'd done so much woodwork and furniture refinishing when I bought my house that I never wanted to tackle another task like it, so thought the table would always be just a serviceable, well-worn old thing with lots of "character." Until this amazing offer from my friend.

He delivered it tonight and wouldn't let me look while he put it together. I even kept my eyes closed while I helped him flip it over. And the result?

Just look at this.
The color is perfect, and the finish is so smooth.
The "blob" is gone, the dings are filled and the surface gleams.

I couldn't help but get out the new place mats and napkins
I'd bought to use when it was done.

Then we spent some time studying the grain
of the gorgeous, old, quarter-sawn oak.

See how it's cut open and placed side by side? Like it's mirrored. (I think there's a more official term for this, but since I don't have a woodworking gene like my brother, and I only made it through high school shop class because nice Rodney Blanck basically did my project for me, of course I don't know what it is).

The stripes are gorgeous. They reminded me of something...

...oh yeah, this!

I'm looking forward to years and years and years of dinner parties around this table. And now it even seats up to 8 people because my friend made me some leaves, too. I definitely got the better end of this deal.