When I bought my home here on Maui, I felt like my dreams had come true. Sure, it was a complete dump with mold growing up the walls and doors falling off the cabinets, but it was MY dump.
The second Matt and I received the keys I was on the hunt. Where could I get furniture that fit the style I envisioned? Not having a dining room in our previous rental left me with out a dining table on the move in. So, this was the first thing I went in search for. My checklist comprised of:
- Quality
- Style
- Local
- Real wood
- Affordable
Yes, locally I was able to check off a few of these items but I was looking at spending $10k+ for a dining room table that hit all my marks. THAT did not make the cut for ‘affordable’. Buying a home on Maui is not cheap and we are not rich. ALL our savings went into that investment and that was okay with us because as I mentioned earlier, our dreams had come true. So, $10k+ I did NOT have to invest in a dining room table, especially a table that I did not love, like ‘heart eyes swoon over it love’. After looking locally, I tried to look online, and the shipping was like a sticker shock to me. I could not believe that I would have to pay hundreds of dollars in shipping on top of the cost of the table just to get some dining room furniture. By that point, I felt like I was down a rabbit hole and super bummed out.
After I put on my big girl panties, I got on my computer to figure out how I could just make my own. I came across a lot of tables with the herringbone pattern and I was digging it. Still, maybe just a little too basic for what I wanted but I was into the look of the wood being pieced together like that. I kept researching and started seeing these awesome wall pieces in the similar design of my table and the more I saw them, the more I fell in love. I decided that I wanted THAT but as a table. So, my husband and I sat down to figure out exactly how we would go about THAT. There weren't any tutorials on it or even any tables out there like what we were envisioning. So, we needed to figure it out.
Our first concern was all of the small joints (the area that connects each piece of cut wood together) and how we could possible use something like that as a dining room table because if food got in those cracks (and they would) how would we clean it without eventually messing up the table. Neither of us wanted to put in the work on this unless it would be something that lasted us for a long time. So, we thought on it and did some research, and Epoxy seemed like the best solution. People were making bottle cap tables out of epoxy so why wouldn’t this work? Well, the end results were more than we could have imagined, like 'heart eyes swoon love'.
So, why Epoxy? Outside of that fact that it looks BEAUTIFUL, it is extremely durable. After now owning an epoxy table, I totally get why most bars/restaurants invest in them. I mean, anything and everything comes off this table. My table is over 2 years old now and looks brand new. And I have a two-year-old, so that says a lot! For Christmas, I had a toddler party at my house where the kids colored wood ornaments with markers and I set the toddlers up on our table. Imagine - no paper under them to protect the table (which we all know they would have ripped off anyways because #toddlersarewild), none of us Moms having to try to keep our kid from coloring all over someone’s furniture, we just enjoyed our wine and let the kids have at it. Before we had gotten started on the ornament coloring, all of my friends were like, ‘Lauren, are you sure? The kids will get marker all over the table and it’s permanent.’ Let’s just say they were shocked when I just cleaned it up with a sponge and little elbow grease. Little did I know when creating the table, it was also kid proof! But SCORE because my kid is wild!
Buying a dining room table is an investment and I know that first hand. I know that it is an item that you want to last you forever. I know that it is a large, focal piece in your home and a lot of your interior styling will be done around that. And that is exactly why I made mine. To last me for forever, to have something diverse in wood/color tones to style around and because the table really is a statement piece on it's own. I had no idea what I was doing when I was creating it, that I could ever create something so beautiful. I think I was even shocked at the finished product and I’m still shocked that with such little care it still looks as good as it does years later....