Recycled Barn Wood Hall Table-Very Rustic

I had received a message asking for pictures of the barn-wood hall table I had made. The topic was projects for recycled barn wood. Please keep in mind that I made this hall-table over 5 years ago when I was just starting in woodworking. A barn at my Mom’s place in NE blew down and she asked if I wanted any of the wood for firewood. Thinking that most of it would be damaged or beyond use I went up there with firewood as my goal.

While digging around, I came across about 6 long beams that were about 12” wide and 4” thick. Well, that’s about where they had started. They were in pretty rough condition. But, in good conscience, I could not tear them up for firewood. I loaded them up along with several other large beams and brought them home.

My wife looked at the wood and said that she had been wanting a long hall-table with a long flat top for old family pictures. She asked if I could use some of this wood for this purpose.

My only goal at the time was to not use metal materials in the table’s assembly. The only piece of metal in this table is a long bolt that runs through the first stretcher beam. This was a leftover from the beam’s previous purpose and I thought it looked cool. You can see it in the pictures. Other than that, this whole thing was put together with 3/4” dowels, glue and a liquid plastic product that sealed the whole piece. I had tried to build a mold where the end result would be a square-edged bar-top. One experiment with that told me that a course like that was going waaaaay too far. I ended up brushing on several heavy coats that I believe will preserve the wood for about 10,000 years.

Having not been involved in the woodworking community at the time, I embedded a shiny penny from the year of construction, thinking I was a genius. I later found out this is a relatively common way to commemorate an item. Anyway, you can see the penny in the upper left of the top.

Thanks for looking!

-- Behind the Bark is a lot of Heartwood----Charles, Centennial, CO