bee

I used a Rubio monocoat hardwax finish because of its ease, but I think I still screwed it up somehow because it's really blotchy in places even though my hands still hurt from rubbing it so hard. I didn't use a plastic applicator, just cloths, so maybe that has something to do with it idk. It also doesn't work on wood glue/filler, there's huge places around the joints where squeezeout is still completely visible even though I sanded the hell out of it. I bought a sample size bottle of the Rubio and I'll have to go through and hand sand some parts and apply new stain to make everything perfect.

The dimensions were pretty easy to figure out once I realized everything was 12 inches, I just had to cut out notches in the middle shelves for the backs. I picked 60" length because our couch has 4' sections and 60" would give us exactly 12" overhang for the corner, so everything works out. The middle shelves are 7" and 13.4", and the feet are 1".

It took about a month from going "I want a new table for the back of the couch" until today when I brought the pieces into the house. I found what I was looking for, bought the materials, did the cutting and sanding, assembled them, stained them, and let them offgas over the last 30 days.

The only tools I used were a compound miter saw and a random orbital sander, for sanding pads I used 3m Cubitron and for screws i used GRK #8 2-1/2" which I HIGHLY recommend. I didn't have to pre-drill anything, they even countersink automatically and beautifully.

I had to use wood glue and clamps to assemble the top and middle, because i couldn't think of a good way to align and fasten everything invisibly- I have a screw diagram below, with pink lines representing what I had to glue. there's also 2 pockethole screws going in the top from the back panel, but I don't know how much work they're actually doing.

THINGS I FUCKED UP, FROM WHICH KNOWLEDGE CAN BE DERIVED:

for whatever reason I thought it would be a good idea to glue the top before I made the back pieces, because "then i would know the exact measurements for the back". this was a bad idea because I misaligned the top in several places that I had to sand down. do the top last.

simultaneously overapplied and underapplied the finish. there are plenty of streaks and also parts that look too thick, plus the wood glue blotches. I thought I had to go fast because the stain's pot time is 1 hour and I had a LOT to get through, but really it just made everything worse. split the pot in half and take your time.

pine sucks. or at least big box pine sucks. everything was great, i sanded the hell out of it, it looked beautiful, then I applied the stain and suddenly you can see mill marks EVERYWHERE and there's loads of rough marks all over the place. with such a dark satin stain it still looks fine from >2ft away but you can see loads of marks and scratches when you check up close.