Okay, now don't rain on it!

Building a patio table for our new house was such a positive experience that it basically inspired this entire blog and just about everything else I’ve done around the house this year. Most of it has gone pretty well, and I have the table to thank for that. So imagine how sad I felt to see how much abuse that table has taken during a hot, wet, first summer in the suburbs.

Seeing this wounded me on a spiritual level

Basically all the rain we’ve had got the poly to start peeling and no one wants to sit down and get flakes of polyurethane all over them. Thankfully, with the office closed for Columbus Day I had some time to fix things up before the weather turned too much. Now I just have to hope it doesn’t rain for the next few days. 

I was optimistic that sanding everything down and re-sealing would be enough to keep the table usable for at least one more summer. The first few passes with the sander had me a little dubious though.

Woof. This did not have me feeling any better.

Once the polyurethane came out things started to turn around though. I managed to get two coats on through the course of the afternoon while working on a bunch of other stuff around the house, and thankfully it didn’t end up raining afterwards. Fingers crossed I have good weather and a few minutes a day to sneak a few more coats on this week. 

First coat. Okay, that looks much better.

I’m hoping that picking up a cover will give the table enough added protection this winter that things stay in decent shape. I love this table but if we get one more summer out of it that might be enough. There are a lot things I would do differently if I was building one today, and with a hand me down cooler ready for the stand treatment, I think building a plain table with nicer wood might yield better results. Those are questions for next summer though, as I spend the fall trying to make sure the table we have now makes it there.