Table & Chairs

For Christmas, we/Santa wanted to get Addison a table and chair set. We looked at several store options and didn't find exactly what we wanted. As I was surfing blogland I found Ana White's rendition of $4 stack-able chairs. Her site is awesome - if you've never checked it out - you should! Anyway, I digress. We decided that we would make Addison's Christmas gift. What started as a December garage project with a space heater running full-blast turned into pure magic on Christmas morning.

We stayed up late on Christmas Eve putting on the last coats of paint (and we still haven't finished painting the clear coat 2 months later!). Plus, if you haven't seen the tip on Pinterest to put a rubber band around your paint can so that you can wipe off your brush, you should try it. There is no paint in the crevice of the paint can, no nasty tacky lid, and we just sealed the can between coats with the rubber band in place - it works wonderfully!

Addison loved the set on Christmas morning (we did make a fourth chair that is red and in our garage - we just push the table up against the wall and so there isn't room for the fourth chair). She could easily climb in and out of the chairs at 6 am Christmas morning - but less than 10 hours later she required a step stool to get in and out of the chairs. I'm not sure if it was the novelty of the step stool or tipping over once that changed her ability. She used the step stool to get in and out for almost a month, but she is now able to climb in and out on her own again.

Notes:
- The chairs cost considerably more than $4. I'm not sure if wood costs have increased, but the wood alone cost about $8 per chair not including the screws/paint/glue/etc.
- The initial start-up cost was also greater because we haven't done any projects like this before so we bought some tools as well.
- We could never have done this project without the Mini Kreg Jig Pocket Hole Kit. It is worth it's weight in gold!
- Wood at Lowes is almost half price compared to Home Depot - however, when I went back screaming to Home Depot :) they honored Lowes prices (but they won't beat by 10% like they do other items because wood is a commodity). Also, Lowes cuts wood for free and Home Depot will only do 3 cuts before charging you. Seeing how each chair required more than a dozen cuts - we actually preferred the service at Lowes - and we are normally Home Depot people.
- Like all good projects - we went to Home Depot/Lowes many more times than we thought necessary! :)