For our property in the Champlain Islands of Vermont, my goal is to make all of the furniture that we would need for it. My first major addition is a table for the dining area. I decided to base the build on the farmhouse table in Ana White’s The Handbuilt Home. In the book, the build calls for dimensional lumber. I chose instead to use lumber milled from my friend’s property. This was the first time I had built anything from rough-sawn wood. The top is ash and the base is pine. I needed to make extensive use of the planer and the jointer. This was my first real exposure to the jointer. When I stickered the ash, I did not realize that I should have put the supports at the end of the boards, so I had some cracking of the ash boards. Here is a picture of the table before cutting the cracked ends off.

Both the ash and the pine are on the lightly-colored side and I thought about staining the table, but decided to go with the natural wood look and water-based poly. Here is a close-up of the top, showing the different colors of the ash.

This has been my most ambitious build to date. First use of rough-sawn lumber and the largest piece. Many mistakes along the way. A lot of learning.

Here is a picture of the table after the ends were removed and prior to sanding and finishing. I have finished sanding the base and will start the poly on the base soon.