a little carpentry

My dad gave Jason a really awesome table saw a while back and we've been wanting to start doing some projects around here to put it to use. We decided that a basic picnic table would be a just the thing to get us started, so we found some plans and went and bought our lumber and other supplies last week.



We started cutting the wood around 11:00 Sunday morning, and before it was dark we had our picnic table all finished! We are really pleased with how it turned out and are excited to start planning our next woodworking project. Here are some photos from our day:





Projects like this are a great way to put our math skills to everyday use: measuring lengths, adding fractions, and figuring angles.



Everyone helped out in some way throughout the day. Stella wasn't very interested in all the loud cutting and drilling, but she liked screwing the nuts and bolts together.





Jason and I always enjoy making things together- we make a good team.



It was almost dark when we got the last support boards in place- just in time!



Lyle loves to help carry heavy things.



And, the finished table! We plan to keep this out in our front yard where we can sit in the shade with friends when they stop by to visit. It is sturdy enough for the kids to climb all over/under and even use as a stage, fort, or whatever it will become. We do plan to paint it and I'll be sure to post photos when we do.



We found the free plans online here and purchased our lumber, bolts, nails, etc. at Home Depot, spending just under $100. We actually saw a kit there for $99 that would have taken us way less time, but this was a great learning project for us and it is super sturdy. It was a lot of fun to build and I know we are much more proud of it than if we had used a kit. Hooray for making things from scratch!