What A Tool.

Lately I've been finding hard to ignore the fact that my job is exceedingly sedentary. The amount of physical activity at my job is limited to the shuffling of bank statements and hammering angrily on the calculator keys like a numeric Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto. I miss the hands-on activity that I had with some of my previous jobs. Clicking a mouse and pushing some keys to get some numbers on a screen to balance is not emotionally stimulating to me. I think what it is that I'm actually missing is using physical tools.
There is something very pleasing to the very mechanical problem solving of a hand tool. For example, my desk chair here at work was a tad wobbly. Yesterday I took it upon myself to flip my chair over and use a handy multi-tool that I keep in my bag to tighten a few screws. Problem solved. This is a very basic undertaking, but the results are immediately recognizable. I've gone around the office making minor repairs with my multi-tool. Re-attaching a plastic edge guard to the corner of the walls from my office and the elevator hallway meet. Tightening the bolt lock on the stall door in the bathroom. Things like this that have been needing repair for months without anyone taking action. This could partially be due to the fact that half of the employees here can hardly take the cap off of their pen without their assistant's help. At any rate, it was self-satisfying and my co-workers took notice and were grateful.

It's because of this self-satisfaction and primal call that I gladly accepted the job of restoring the dining set in our home. Now I don't have any experience with staining or finishing wooden furniture. In fact my wood working experience is limited to my 7th grade wood working class and the pine-wood derby car I made in Cub Scouts in 3rd grade (the story of that derby car is worthy of a post of it's own so I'll save that for another day). Luckily the internet is full of useful information and I did a little research on techniques. My brother and I loaded up on some supplies and got to work. It's still a work in progress, we've been working on it a little every day.

Here is a picture of before/after sanding. The left side shows all of the damage to the old finish. The right side shows the bare wood all sanded and nice.

Here is a picture showing the table leaf with the new stain on it compared to the bare wood of the table.

Yesterday after work my brother and I were able to finish applying the stain to the rest of the table and it is now drying in the garage. Tomorrow after work we plan on applying the satin finish for the final step. Next up will be the chairs.