After all the designing , planning and measuring of church pew bits. Which were originally designed to fit around an existing table the client already owned. She confessed she wanted to find a new one which matched the style of the booth seat better.
So as i finished one project, it automatically led on to another one.
As a starting point we now had to track down a suitable and similar in style donor table. One that fitted the look of the now finished church pew seating. My client and myself had slightly differing ideas on what sort of item we were looking for, but in the meantime it was time to go shopping.
After looking around all my usual salvaging haunts, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find a suitable table. We managed to find numerous possible tables, but finding a match was still becoming an issue. Until my client mentioned she had an idea…. She had an old Singer sewing machine base that had been purchased a couple of years previous. She suggested using it as a leg base for the table. So this meant all we needed to find now was a suitable table top in a similar style. This wasn’t as hard as expected, we eventually found a simple horizontal drop leaf table top in almost the exact shade of colour. Perfect!
The only issue was to find a use for the legs, but i’m sure after they were kindly donated to the business by my client, i could find a use for them eventually.
Right the next step was to colour match the table top to match the booth seat. So after a good sanding down and adding a few layers of stain and varnish it was done.
My client had one last challenge for me. The main use of the table was to sit horizontally between the side booth seats. There was only one issue with this idea. The extendable leafs would not fit within the desired space. So this was going to require a few experiments to see if i could come up with a solution.
I thought to myself, surely it would be easy to turn the whole table round by moving out from between the seating, extending the drop leafs and placing it back in. The only issue was the Singer base would not fit sideways in the gap, plus there wasn’t enough room for your legs under the table! More thinking required!
Then i had a brain wave. I had forgotten about an old garden table top i had acquired months previous to the build. It had a rotating baring built into it, which i assumed was still in working order. Time to check it out!
I was pleased to find it in full working order. So next, all i had to do was attach it between the Singer base and the drop leaf table top. This would enable the top to rotate, leaving the base where it was. I would have loved to incorporate the Singer pedal into this process, but this was a little bit beyond my engineering capabilities.
First i had to build a secure wooden frame attached to the singer base, which the circular bearing would be connected to. This would need to be spaced correctly so the bearing could turn properly. Not as easy as i thought. I eventually, after a lot of tweaking, got the table top to turn a full 180 degrees. Perseverance was the key on this occasion. I was very proud of the final outcome and hopefully so would my client.
She was happy and so was I.
The only thing left to do was to install it in it’s new home, matching it up with the booth seat. I can definitely say that compliment each other perfectly.