Poker Table

Buying a house is a big move! 

Buying a house with so much spare wood just sitting waiting to become a poker table was a great move.  Seeing all of that uncut lumber sitting on a shelf was an unbelievable stroke of luck.  

My wife and I bought the house and had very little furniture.  One room in the basement had absolutely nothing to go in it, so I (of course) claimed it to be my man cave. (Chest Thump) "What will I put in my man cave?" I thought. My buddies and I play a lot of cards, I should get a poker table.  

"Where will I get a poker table for no money?" 

"I just bought a house all my money bought furniture and appliances."

"Hrmph!"  I had to find a way.  (Wander into the storage room looking for a hammer to finish another project.)  

"Hey, I think I'm going to build a poker table out of all of this spare wood. It's no good for anything else!"

"As long as you finish putting up the new baseboard first!" I heard a caring, thoughtful and quiet voice from the laundry room say. My wife, luckily, lets me start lots of projects. She is a great motivator to get them finished too!

That's how I got my start.  Now my task was to figure out how the new table could look. I needed a piece of paper. Where oh where did we pack the paper away?  Once drawn I sprung into action. (After finishing the baseboard of course.) I worked away in the storage room, making quite a mess with the sawdust.   I am no carpenter, so the going was pretty slow to start.  I found some 2x2's and there was some plywood screwed to the wall in the storage room.  I figured that would make a good base.  I quietly unscrewed it from the wall, as not to arouse suspicion from upstairs and went to find where I packed my circular saw.

As the base began to take shape, I started thinking how smart I was for having figured out what to do with all of this extra wood.  I had gotten pretty absorbed in my little project by the time I started connecting the table top.  It was just then that I realized, "Oh, I wont be able to get this out of the storage room if I fasten the top on first."  I had to rethink my strategy for getting that table top on to the base.   

I got the whole thing assembled in the MAN CAVE, and brought in a couple of chairs from the kitchen to test out my creation. It wasn't until I wanted to put away my poker chips behind what I felt were pretty fancy doors, that I realized, "Oops, there aren't any handles on these doors."  I chuckled to myself loudly as I started unscrewing the handles on one of the bi-fold doors I had just replaced.  "It's a good thing I didn't listen to my wife and sell these old doors on Kijiji yet," I thought.  Justification for my procrastination is always appreciated in times like these.  

Now my table was complete.  All I needed was some chairs that the guys could sit on. The kitchen chairs would quickly be destroyed by some of my less respectful friends.  Luckily I had a gift card someone had brought by as a house warming gift a few weeks earlier so I headed off to Canadian Tire to get some cheap folding chairs.  Something I could easily replace if someone had a few too many pops and tipped the chair backwards hilariously.

As you will see from the pictures of the table, the finished product looks far from the pile of seemingly useless left behind wood. The guys were equally appreciative of my work when I hosted the next round of poker.  The least they could have done was let me win one game since I had worked so hard on my table.  

I hope this tale inspired you to get to work on a project at home.  If you are looking for any tips, send me a picture of your materials and I'll help you brainstorm.  Have a similar story of junk recovery heroism?  Send it along too. I would gladly post it here to inspire others.  Include a funny summary of your project and some pics if possible.  Until next time, Payless is more than just a shoe store; it's how some jobs get done.