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Serial #012

Longleaf Low Table

I have to smile when I think of the various parts of the Longleaf Low Table coming together for a second go-around. Every component barely made it. Barely survived getting thrown in the fire, or hauled to the dump, or thrown in the scrap pile. The turned posts at one end of the table were part of a widow’s walk on an old Victorian home that had fallen to the wrecking ball to make room for a freeway expansion in Austin, Texas. The oil well sucker rods on the opposite end of the table are leftovers from a corral upgrade.

Saved from the fire, the white frame boards are former fence boards from the Parker House in Lipscomb, Texas. Before finally finding their way to me, they were stacked in a barn where they were attacked by termites. Center panels are made from longleaf pine 1x4 skip sheeting. When the sheeting lumber comes off the barn roof, bristling with nails large and small, and caked in Dust Bowl dirt, it is very tempting to haul the whole lot to the burn pit. And the white panel on the little door comes from the front door of a long-abandoned homestead on Willow Creek.