Reclaimed Columns Buffet

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Well, here it is… my reclaimed columns buffet…

Making things is nice. I mean, really, really, really, fun.

But making things out of materials that mean something, that represent some emotional connection to your heart, can permeate your soul like a white sheet that’s been thrown in a deep vat of hot pink dye.

That’s what this reclaimed columns buffet is to me. It represents the gift of friendship.

Here they are before…

And after…

So, what did I use? Not much honestly. I bought some select pine, 4 1×4’s I think, glued them together and screwed 1×2’s across them every foot or so for stability.

Then, I placed the columns about 10″ apart and screwed more 1×2’s around them to create a frame. The columns were, well, not exactly square, so just custom fitting them became the most, umm, sensible thing to do…

That was aftah I tried to be all pre-cise and use some Geometry…

Then I screwed through the frame directly into the columns.

In the picture above, you can sorta see how it came out. And then, I realized, by placing the columns in a row (cuz I didn’t like how wide it was when I put them like legs on a table), it wasn’t the MOST stable structure one could design.

Rather than begin again, I thought to myself, “Self, figure this out!” And I hot-footed it over to Home Despot, and found these fancy, schmancies.

They seem to help it. It hasn’t fallen over. Yet…

I slapped two coats of Black Enamel on the columns and, scraping the bottom of the can of Pear Green from the piano, I painted a coat on the buffet top, distressed it, and dry brushed on some white. Finally, I sealed the whole shebang with Minwax Furniture Wax.

I really, really, should seal it with some Floor Sealer or at least a couple more coats of wax, but I’m a mite lazy busy at the moment…

{sigh}

After 14 years, I still {heart} my stemware. It was love at first sight.

My husband’s pretty great too…

Cheep, cheep.

I found this old, rusty, fence gate at an auction for $5. Mercy, how I love it, but it’s just one of those things that hasn’t quite found it’s home. It’s a bit of a vagabond, I guess.

I {heart} auctions, too.

But I’ll save that for another time.

So, turning to what is probably the most dramatic transformation of this post.
This part of history….

Was lovingly restored to be both beautiful…

And functional…

Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you for being so generous to our family and for indulging my crazy ideas!In 2003, Dan was the recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award. You can read more about it here. Now, THIS is one Bold individual.And Mary Lou is right up there with him. Not only is she incredibly kind and generous, she has a brilliant mind. I’d sit in awe as she and Morgan would discuss History as if they were two Ivy League professors chatting over coffee… Nope. Not a clue. Just give me a sewing machine. Or a hammer.

It’s thanks to this amazing couple that I have just a little part of South-West Georgia here with me to remind me that God touches our lives through the relationships that he sends to us. Really, that is the beauty of this life, the relationships that we build and the bonds that we share.

Not just the stuff we make.

We love you dear friends. All of you from First Presbyterian Church of Donalsonville, Ga, you touched our lives in ways we never even realized. God Bless and Keep you, always…