This weekend everyone here was either working or doing the Seattle to Portland Bike Ride so I was on my own. I took this quiet time to finally finish my tiled patio table or, as Romy affectionately calls it, “the hippie dippy table project”.

It all started a couple of months ago when James and I were on a Saturday morning drive. I looked out the car window and saw a topless steel patio table on the side of the road. I immediately thought, hmmm, that looks like it’s in pretty good shape; it would make a nice tile project. So I said, “Stop, let’s get it!” He said it wouldn’t fit in the back of the Prius and kept driving.  Later that day I recruited Ollie to come with me in the Volvo wagon to see if it was still there. It was and he helped me lift it into the car.

When I got home, I tipped the table over onto a thick piece of spare plywood that I had in the basement and traced the top. It took a little work to reacquaint myself with my old jigsaw but I figured it out eventually. The rest was pretty easy. I made a lot of tiles from slabs of clay using cookie cutters. I then glazed them with a variety of cone 5 glazes I have in the studio. The last steps were laying them out, setting them with thinset, and grouting. I did apply a sheet of waterproofing barrier on top of the plywood. I’ll probably be leaving the table out in the rain and I’m hoping the barrier will protect the plywood from water damage.