Panettone - Not Your Momma’s Fruitcake
December 24, 2009 – 1:08 pm | 12 Comments

Merry Christmas to all Mamaliga fans! Here’s another try at baking Panettone from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice book for the BBA Challenge. I didn’t blog about it initially since there were some things I wanted to tweak and adapt from his original formula. Quite a few changes.

Read the full story »
BBQ

Desserts

Old Wive's Tales

Sourdough Starter

Wordless Fridays

Home » Outdoors, Random Projects

Hexagonal Cedar Picnic Table

Submitted by Gabi on September 23, 2009 – 10:29 am9 Comments
Cedar Picnic Table

Cedar Picnic Table

Only so you know on what am I spending usually the hot summer weekends, this post is about a picnic cedar table I built (commissioned by my wife) out of these six sided hexagonal picnic patio table plans

It took a while but I finally pit it together with a little help from my brother in laws. This thing is HEAVY!! The plan calls for whatever lumber you might find in your store. The day I went looking for lumber, red cedar was on sale so I decided to go with that.
It was much fun cutting the boards. The cedar smell was able to be detected from the street.
I found that you might need to juggle with the angles as I had to cut down a 1″ portion of one of the boards on each hexagon ring - starting with the bench and all the way to the middle of the table

But nevertheless it resulted in a beautiful deck table that can comfortably sit up to 16 people.

The Picnic Table

Bench

Table top

Picnic Table

Staining (in the true sense of the word)

We read on this subject and appears that people recommend staining the red cedar to extend its life - yes, even if it is cedar. Looks like cedar lumber is not what has been years ago.
So she went on and bought the most expensive Australian Timber Oil (for decks, railings, stairs and outdoor furniture) natural look made by Cabot, stained it, etc. It looked lovely!
But the real test came after 3-4 days when a rain was enough to add black stains to my beautiful red cedar:

After the first rain

Don't buy it!

Expensive Stain

Dark stains after rain

That’s enough to say that I don’t recommend using this particular brand on your beautiful outdoor furniture unless you like these dark water stains.

Not to leave on a bitter note, we really enjoy the table despite the stains - very big and gorgeous!

Related posts

Stumble
Delicious
Technorati
Twitter
Facebook






9 Comments »

  • Vanessa says:

    Gabi!! Even a table!! You’re the master of ALL trades! The table looks beautiful. It would be cool to see a picture with people seated, because I have a feeling it is a lot bigger than what it looks like!
    Great job!
    Vanessa

  • Gabi says:

    … and master of none as cliche as it sounds - lol. I get bored doing one thing pretty fast - hehe. That’s why cooking is so appealing, every time something new. I guess I’d have hard time working a chef in a restaurant doing the same thing over and over. Good point about a pic with a whole gang at the table. Got to do that soon as fall is being felt in Chicago already -

    thanks for the comment!

  • Joan Nova says:

    You’re a very handy guy to have around the house! I remember the kitchen remodeling too.

    Beautiful job.

  • Gabi says:

    Joan!

    Thanks for the comment! Wish I had you guys around the table at a lovely dinner!

  • Cynthia says:

    There are so many things I’d like made… can I pay you in food? :)

  • Gabi, a great job on building the table! It looks great. Sorry to learn of the water stains… that sucks. How many coats of the stain did you apply? I usually go for two coats. But, in any case, the table is still a fine piece of outdoor furniture and you should be proud of your handiwork! Now, can you come over and build one for us, too? :)

  • Gabi says:

    Cynthia!
    ooo - that’s a nice trade! Let me see - but it is so hard to choose something from your beautiful blog!!

    Sam,
    I did one coat - it should have been plenty. Since then I contacted Cabot - and their lab suspects pollution in the rain. They offered to refund the cost of the stain tho.
    Also they mentioned to let it weather through the winter and see what happens.
    So - if I come and build you one of these tables, can you pay me in food like Cynthia from your awesome Greek creations??

  • Toni says:

    Wow!!! That’s beautiful!!!! I like the brick patio too!

    I’m inspired… maybe I’ll make one of those in the spring… got to get my house done first!

  • My friend, I would cook up some Greek food for you anytime you decide to come up for a drive! No need to build us a table. Instead, we’ll sit on the patio, smoke Cuban cigars and sip fine fFrench cognac. :)

Leave a comment!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.