This project came at the request of my neighbor for whom I had already made the sewing table. She was now requesting a table which she could stand at and cut fabrics. She also wanted one that would sit overtop of her sewing table when it wasn’t in use since she had limited space. In general, this table was easier to make since it was a duplicate of the sewing table, just taller and lacking a hole in the middle of it. The original plan was that the table would be 30” deep putting it at just 6” deeper than the sewing table. It would be 50” wide which would allow the legs of the cutting board table to fit nicely outside of the sewing table’s edges and would be 42” tall to allow for the sewing machine sitting in the sewing table (at 37”) to fit under the aprons.
This was all good and well until I asked my neighbor if she would be using a cutting mat- I was more concerned about the durability of using paint again with her cutting on the surface. She said she didn’t have one, but would go out and buy one and give me the measurements for it. The one she purchased was 36”x36” she told me…. So I went back to the drawing board and made the table 36.5” deep. This would’ve been ok except that most of the door frames in her house were at most 36”… And as you can probably tell from the photo, the mat is not 36”x36” but maybe 24”x36”.
Delivery day was no fun. I had gotten help from my husband. We tried the front door with the table tipped to the side. We tried standing it straight up. Then we tried the back door but the hallway was too narrow to make the corner. Finally we had to take the top off to allow enough clearance to get in the room. All the while, my husband and I are offering to keep the table ourselves. She is laughing saying she doesn’t plan to move anytime soon. In the end, we were able to get the table in her office and set up for her. I hope she will be a happy customer after all that drama.
Lessons learned:
– A second set of eyes never hurts when measuring something- especially if you are altering your building plans because of it.
– When making something for a second time, it’s going to be better. So just imagine making it for the 5th or 6th time!