Spalted Maple Sofa Table #1: Planning

Back in June, a teacher friend of mine was looking to buy a sofa table from Target or some nonsense like that. Since she knew of my new-found hobby, she asked what I could do, and I replied “anything within reason”. Little did I know that that would be my most challenging (pathetically so) project to date.

I started by getting a rough idea of what the size needed to be and then spent almost a week getting her to decide on a type of wood. I was secretly hoping for walnut (I’m crushing hard on walnut), but she wanted maple. I told her it might look a little bland, but ok. While I was in DC on a business trip, a woman posted these magical words on craigslist: Selling spalted maple, $75

I emailed her and tried convincing her to hold on to them for me. She was a doll and did so. Long story short, there wasn’t as much as she thought there would be, so she offered $25. By the time I left (with plenty of ‘extras’ she was looking to get rid of), I felt guilty, so I doubled the amount.

The friend (aka client :D) was thrilled at how the wood looked and even more thrilled with the design—something basic, simple, shaker-ish:

And so I spent the next two months plodding along at a snails pace..

-- Dan, Rochester, NY