Hall Table

I finished my hall table (or I guess it is called a cabinet) before my hospital stay and I even managed a few photos of it.  I am not a good photographer, I tend to photograph in distortions to the project.  I tried a little harder this time and got just a little better at it.  The hall is a little on the dark side and I plan on putting a skylight in when the next roof goes on someday.  I knew some of the colors I used in the finish would really pop with bright light... so as it sits it is sort of a chameleon.

The drawer and door pulls are Bocote an extremely dense and hard exotic wood.  When it is cut and sanded it lightens up... eventually the oil in the wood will seep back to the surface and be dark brown with black grain.  I'm having a hard time with the lightness but I hope to remain calm and wait for it to turn dark instead of staining it... there is no finish on the pulls.

The front and back are made of Basswood, which is a real soft and light weight wood from South East USA.  It carves great and was a great beginner project for me.  I gouged out random patterns in the wood and then sanded and dyed the wood brown and then black... then I sanded it to give it a random color.  I then took a clear polyurethane and added dyes to it to achieve an Eggplant final coat... bingo... it's my favorite part of the project.

The main part of the project is left over Pecan wood... and the size of the project was dictated by the size of the scraps.  The top is made of a Pecan slab I bought... The bark is finished with Shellac and the top of it with many coats of wipe on Polyurethane.  There are lots of worm holes and the biggest are filled with clear epoxy and sanded smooth.  The sides are made of Maple veneer that I glued up into curve plywood to fit into the curves of the legs.  You can see a tinge of the Eggplant color in the bottom photo.