A Labor of Love

I'll start by telling you that I usually don't have the "vision" for creative and/or crafty projects. There you have it...my disclaimer. That being said...I, or rather "we," have started a project. I formerly had this kitchen table that we moved out onto the patio. It wasn't meant to be an outside table...not made of the right materials to handle inclement weather. Needless to say, it is no more. So I was left with these two perfectly good table legs. That's where this process started. Then, after watching waaayyyy too much HGTV, I got the nifty idea that I could resurface this table and have a great outdoor table for entertaining. The adventure begins. After a rather lengthy trip to Home Depot, we left with $200 worth of materials to make a tile topped table. Little did I realize that we could have gone to IKEA and purchased a perfectly fine outdoor table for 1/3 of the cost. Never mind that...this is to be a labor of love and a project we can point to with pride and say, "We did that." So we left Home Depot with the back gate tied in place and an 8 foot board sticking out of the back of Ronnie's car. We also had packages containing backerboard, mastik, tile, tile border, grout, waterproofer, spacers, mastik tools, grout tools and tile sealer. We'll have to go back for the edge trim! We didn't quite make it home without incident. One of the packages fell out of the back of the open gate and we had to stop on a heavily trafficked road and pick it up. Finally, however, we made it home without further incident. Then today, after I repainted the table legs a lovely shade of black, we went into the garage to begin the tabletop process. We measured and cut the board. We got out the waterproofer and sealed the board (even though the directions said it shouldn't be done if the temperature would be lower than 50 degrees in the next 48 hours--what can it hurt, right?). Then, just for grins, we began laying the tile out on top of the board to "see how it will look." If this project EVER gets done it will be a nice looking table. Right now, however, the tile squares and the tile border are two different heights, we are 2 feet by 2 feet short of the correct number of tiles and the tile border will have to be returned. Oh, and by the way, it dawned on me this afternoon that I will need to find some chairs to go with this table. I feel like Dorothy...you know, the one who went to Oz...

Imagine me clicking the heels of my ruby slippers, okay....my gray New Balance tennis shoes, together and chanting, "I will get this done...I will get this done...I will get this done!" Pictures will be posted when/if this project actually comes to fruition.