It is a very rough cut slab that is 12 feet by 3 feet.
A hefty chunk of wood.
My husband and I moved this baby from Minnesota to Virginia in the middle of the winter. Our trailer was only 10 feet long so it hung out a little bit.
It sat in our garage for 4 years while I tried to figure out what to use it for. Birds made a nest on it.
Then it made the trip from Culpeper, Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina via moving truck where is sat in my basement for another 3 years.
It is a huge piece of wood. I had a few woodworkers suggest cutting it.
That was not going to happen.
After a lot of thought I decided to head to Habitat for Humanity to see if I could find a base for the desk. I figured that built in cabinets that were made for desks would work great. Thankfully I was able to find two cabinets that were exactly alike and were file cabinets with drawers.
Perfect size, perfect height.
More importantly perfect price…$15.00 each! Score!
As a trial run to see if it would work I placed the top on the base and used it for about a month.
It was exactly what I wanted.
After a month of using it and getting a lot of slivers it was time to sand it down.
I ran lots of different ideas of finishes through my mind while I was sanding.
Sand it all the way down?
Just knock the big stuff off and keep the character?
Stain, no stain.
Sand one side, leave the other.
By the time I had sanded for 5 hours.
And used many pads of 60 grit, 120 grit, 220 grit sand paper I ended up sanding it smooth.
Sanding can be kind of mesmerizing when you start to see the grain coming though.
Unfortunately Cypress wood does not have that pretty of a grain. But the feel of such smooth texture kept me going.
No final picture of the after the sanding stage. Sorry.
When I was done sanding and wiping it down with mineral spirits to make sure the surface was really clean I was ready to stain.
Remember I said that I had an entire quart of Honey stain in the garage.
I don’t remember when I bought the stain and I was quite surprised that I had an entire quart but did not question it.
I should have.
I should have tested it on a small piece of wood.
I should have listened to myself when I thought…hmmmm, seems kinda dark?
I should have and I didn’t.
I was being impatient because I wanted to see it done.
After I made the first swipe of stain across the freshly sanded board did I then remember….This is a mixture of stain I made from Mahogany, Ebony, Honey and some other color I had left over.
This IS NOT going to be a light color.
Oh, well.
A lot more color that I had planned.
But it works OK.
And the finish is very smooth.
No more slivers.