Always Something

There is always some sort of project in the works at our house - big or small. We have yet to tackle the tile and painting I mentioned earlier, but instead, Jack is working on some patio furniture. We have a lovely covered patio, but use it rarely because we don't have the proper furniture.

Well, we found some awesome chairs for a wonderful price on Craigslist (brand new!) and Jack built the foundation for the table....now all we needed was the top.

I was leery about it, but Jack really wanted to create a cement table top. Never mind it being messy and we'd have to rent a mixer, the thing was going to weigh hundreds of pounds. I have learned however if he is curious about something, it's in my best interest to just let him do it. With that, he went out on a hot afternoon and got all the materials required to make this cement table top: mixer, cement, frame, re-bar, etc.

And so it began....

And Jack in he official "gettin' work done" red t-shirt

Well, all was fine and dandy until about half way through when he tried to put the re-bar in the middle of the cement. It just wasn't working. The piece he had purchased was bowed just enough that it was popping right out of the cement and wouldn't take form within the table. This is a big problem. Without the infrastructure, it's almost certain the table will crack, in some way, at some point. Jack opted to finish up despite the missing re-bar - he really had no other choice.

The 3 of us immortalized our hand prints and then let it rest/dry for several days. It was still crack free, but we both agreed it is just too dangerous to have something that could potentially could break; especially with Shelby on the scene. So, what's next? Demolition.

Little by little Jack had to chip it apart. It was loud and it was tedious. What do you do with hundreds of pounds of cement? You wait for trash day and put small amount in each of the neighbors cans....that was Jack's dirty work. There was so much that it had to be done over two week,

What's next? Round two. He has plans to try the cement route again, but with a new re-bar plan and with two smaller pieces, rather than one large table top. Wish us luck - I hope to next post a photo of us all enjoying dinner on our patio at our new, fabulous table :)