patio furniture Archives -

Solving a need with stuff we didn’t need!

The previous owner of our house left a fair amount of wood scraps in the garage. The really good stuff I cut up for various projects and the bad stuff I burned as part of our summer and fall fire pit evening extravaganzas.[1]

That left the mediocre stuff. The stuff you look at and think, “I’ll definitely use it eventually, but not today- and certainly not on this project.”[2]

I mean, the distressed, rustic wood look on a farmhouse-style kitchen table is cool but not if the wood looks like it came from a haunted house!

My aversion to using mediocre wood scraps resulted in me doing two things I typically detest:

Spending money on things I don’t technically need. With the exception of a few planks of premium pine given by a friend, all of my projects last year used wood purchased from a store.
Holding on to things that don’t have a clear use. It’s part of what I call “The Hobbyist’s Curse” and the clutter drives me crazy.

So with the days growing short and my scrap pile increasing, I set out to reverse these bad habits and use up before I paid up.

I decided to call this project “The Ultimate Scrap Challenge” after actually looking closely at the scrap wood I had; it would be a lot more difficult to make something than I had expected![3]

I had a few 2x4s that had seen better days, some oddly cut plywood and 4x4s, some very small leftovers from my dresser, shelf and various desk projects, and some seasoned logs that were intended for the fireplace.

I mulled things over for a few days. I thought of building a birdhouse, a bird bath, an art project[4], or just throwing in the towel and throwing the scrap in the fire.

But one evening, sitting in a hard plastic Adirondack style chair by the firepit, I realized I had nowhere to place my craft root beer and fire-licked hot dog. And thus, The Muses sang.

Ultimate Scrap Challenge #1 would be an outdoor side table.

I grabbed the nicest 2×4 pieces and sized them up. I didn’t have enough 2x4s or 4x4s for legs, and decided that logs for legs would be sweet.

*There’s a 95% chance I was muttering darkly to myself during this picture*

I did some dry fitting and some placing in my head. You can see the evolution of the design in my planner:

*It started out pretty well, and ended up…well…*

With a final design in mind, I went to the wood shop and chiseled off as much bark from the logs as I could. I then sanded the logs and the 2x4s with an orbital sander. The logs ended up looking kind of marbleized which I did not expect:

*I guess whatever pest had started eating them was an artist too!*

After cutting the 2x4s to size I used pocket hole screws and wood glue on the 2x4s to make the top:

I decided to sand it down a little to provide a smoother table surface as well as to prevent splinters:

Unfortunately, when I went to dry fit the legs I realized that one leg wasn’t going to work: with the bark on it had looked fine, but while taking the bark off I found a large section had gone soft and the log was too bent and misshapen to balance well.

After getting ideas from wood shop folks[5] I decided to cut the offending log in half and attach the pieces onto the side of the table for a “log wrap around” look. After cutting the semi-rotted log on the bandsaw I used an electric hand planer to trim it down so it lined it up with the table top:

I then used nails to attach the remaining three legs in a tripod fashion and boom, we had a table!

*It even balances on three legs. Science!*

The extra space from the side logs was a welcome bonus; admittedly, the original top lacked adequate space but that was fixed once the log ends were attached.

To finish the patio table I doused the whole thing (legs and all) with several coats of tung oil. It gave the wood a nice uniform color that tied the patio table together:

Eight months after finishing the table it’s still looking great, so I declare this Ultimate Scrap Challenge a success.

A closing note on care taking: I leave it out during the rain, but during winter I brought the table into the garage since we aren’t on the patio very often in winter. I also plan to re-apply tung oil each year to keep it looking great.

[1] No really, they’re THAT amazing.

[2] Admit it, you do this too.

[3] This name is probably already taken by some group or another, but I hadn’t heard of it and thought it sounded just over the top enough to be fun and serious.

[4] I am NOT artistic. So this would have been a real stretch for me.

[5] Some solicited, some not.

This project put me in physical therapy for weeks, but was completely worth it.

Part of my frugality quirk includes looking for stuff that I would totally buy, but am willing to wait a long time to get for free.[1]

I’ve previously posted about an outdoor patio side table I designed and built from leftover wood as an “ultimate scrap challenge.”[2]

And add to that, the former owner of the house next door gave us two Adirondack-style hard plastic chairs before she moved out:

The small blue table was part of the free set I got from Craigslist in this post, but since we didn’t need it (or the Adirondack chairs) I gave them all away as a set of their own…on Craigslist. It’s the circle of life!

Not too bad for free patio furniture. However, we were about to up-level our patio furniture game by 1,000.

As I often do, I pulled up Craigslist and browsed the free listings. One called “Free outdoor furniture” caught my eye. It was a sweet, stylish teak patio furniture set. Even though it was old and had mold, I was excited about restoring it to its full glory!

In the pictures the furniture didn’t look very good, and I mentally confirmed I’d purchased a new, working nozzle for our power washer before asking if it was still available. The next day and one quick trip later, the teak patio set was ours.

Here is what the patio set looked like after making it back to our place:[3]

*Cushions and pillows were included. In the back you can see the outdoor side table I made from scrap wood the previous fall*

Yikes. Some breaks and rot but overall not impossible to fix…but I knew it would take a lot of work.

First came power washing:

Oh yeah! That’s the stuff.

Bonus point to me for thinking to move the furniture onto the grass for some free watering.

All done with power washing the wood:

And here is the set back on the patio for comparison:

I didn’t forget about the pillows! There was a LOT of dirt/algae(?) on them:

*Unfortunately the power washer setting was too strong in places and 2 cushions got holes. Word to the wise.*

Next I sanded the wood with a random orbital sander and 120 grit sandpaper:

After I was done sanding then my wife and I got some rubber gloves, lint-free rags, and teak oil and went to town on the freshly sanded patio set.

Two coats of teak oil later and this is the result:

And here you can see the difference between no teak oil vs one coat:

We were all amazed by the results; I will always remember my kids’ jaws dropping when they saw the finished product:

And from the other side:

I’ll include a note of caution: I definitely strained my lower back with all of the lifting, bending, and repetitive motions involved to power wash, sand, and stain them. So take that into account and don’t hurt yourself! It took me three separate, sequential afternoons to do all of this and my back is still sore several days later. Yeah, guess I’m old after all.[4]

[1] There are worse quirks..

[2] I highly recommend Ultimate Scrap Challenges. I doubt I started the practice but would love to see what you make!

[3] This all fit in our 1998 Honda CR-V. That car is magical and can fit anything.

[4] Update a few months later: the pain didn’t go away so I ended up in physical therapy :/

Tag: patio furniture

Making an Outdoor Side Table from Scrap Wood

Epic Patio Furniture Restoration