My new table extension

After a few months of procrastination I finally finished my walnut table extension. I bought our old Henry 9 walnut table from my aunt a few years ago, it was in a bad shape and I started restoring its top back in Switzerland. My first attempt was decent enough but after a trip across the Atlantic (when we moved to the states), the table suffered from humidity and cracks reopened.

In addition to the cracks the table had the ability to extend but we didn’t have proper extension, just a few pine boards roughly assembled. I always wanted a long dining table and thus started working on a walnut extension. In North America, walnut is dark as opposed to the light European walnut. I finally found a few light colored boards here in Austin in a wood mill. After joining, molding, sanding and waxing I’m pretty pleased with the result. We finally have a long table which extension will now operate as a permanent table top.

Due to the old age of the table and the numerous layer of shellac and other products used to tint it, the original wood is darker than the new extension; it has an orange cast to it. I didn’t want to match the extension perfectly as it is not old and I wanted to show the period difference and let the wood age. The skirt of the extension revealed to be extremely light in comparison to the original one. I decided to wait a couple months and decide then whether it needs to be tinted