And now the Coffee Table

I was having trouble with Photoshop on the new (Mom's old) computer, but I finally got wise and changed the RAM cache thing, so I was able to get my pics going again. And have I said how much I love those USB memory sticks? Thank you USB memory stick inventor peoples!
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I forgot to take a before before picture of the table that would become my new coffee table but I found this old picture on my blog from the estate sale pics. That's the table there below:
I found the table in the garage. It was my daughter's boyfriend's old kitchen table. A basic Ikea piece that I believe is Pine, but I am no wood identifying specialist. I told my daughter that either he could come and get it or I was going to make a coffee table from it. She said, "He'd probably take $20 for it." I said, "Yeah, that wasn't one of the options." So I ended up with it. My husband, after we brought it home, said, "What are we going to do with this?" I said, "I'm going to make it our new coffee table." He replied, "But it's too tall." Men are so funny. My friend Carole who also happens to be my two doors down neighbor, has a crafty husband (How NICE! He also COOKS!). They came by that Saturday afternoon, he unscrewed the legs, went to his cool machinery and cut them off. So here it is in my driveway before the sanding started:

The moron helpful lad at Lowe's had told me I would need a VERY fine grit sandpaper for my palm sander so I bought all this 220 and all I was doing was making fine dust. I kept trying lower and lower numbers which I fortunately already had, and finally got that bad boy sanded down to the raw wood:

Actually, that picture was taken after I had stained the legs. I did the legs first (4 coats) then the sides (4 coats) then the top (3 coats). Between every coat of every section, I had to clean my brush and stir stick and wait an hour. Why the stir stick? Because with all those coats I would have needed 11 stir sticks. I think, but I can't do math in my head. And anyway, I did not have 11 stir sticks. Or 10 or 12 even, so I kept cleaning the stir stick every time I cleaned the brush. If reading this was exhausting, then you can imagine what all that actual cleaning and waiting was like. Oh and I forgot: Before each new coat I did a fine hand sanding, so those 220's did come in handy after all.

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So here is the new coffee table which I actually keep stuff on top of, but which I removed to take this picture:

I took the old coffee table, sanded it, put a coat of primer/sealer on it and then outdoor paint that matches our wood trim and put it outside for Barney. It is now his dining table. And yes Barney lives outside now which I used to be against after I was against indoor cats, but I imagine that is all for another post. Also I just finished painting bright red eyes inside of skulls. Not real skulls, that would be gross. It's Halloween decoration stuff, which you know you will see eventually. And now I'm going to order my delicious Sea Dog Blue Paw beer from Maine. Oh and:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLE!