Being a therapist I need a couch, and that couch needs a place for the lamp and folks’ coffee. The olive was a treat to myself earlier this year, as the 5ish foot length (of the most figured and funky stuff they had) cost a cool 70 bucks, which before I got into the intricacies of wood and making stuff to show that off, would have seemed beyond outrageous.

But olive is quite unique.

I filled the various cracks and gaps with clear epoxy, made an angled cut with a gentle miter, flipped the short piece (to highlight the different yet same grain structure), and attached with plain old screws, whose holes were filled with epoxy mixed with wood dust (from initial sanding of the olive). Not as sophisticated as a classic river table, but I am not yet that skilled, and into not hiding the bits that go into making wood into a thing. The epoxy curing in a few of the larger cracks caused a good inch of warp over the first night, which I’d never before seen, and required more aggression than planned to fix, hence the chunky salvaged pine 2 by 4 glued to the base, which looks fine (I think) and flatened things out nicely. Live edge cleanup I did with a wire brush, good enough to get things clean without impacting the natural appearance at all. And leaves no marks upon finishing.

The front legs are scraps from the same salvaged pine lumber, the back legs off cuts from a new bit of lumber (the 2 by 6 I used on this canoe project, in fact) . With a good bit of sanding and several coats of linseed oil I quite like how the legs and base go along with the top, complementing yet not drawing much attention to themselves.

The top initially got the linseed oil treatment, but after a few months in my office had dried out just a hair, so business surfaces got resanded (to 320 this time) and treated with Rubio Monocoat pure, which is both smoother, higher gloss, and a bit toughter.

I am happy.