voila!

Here's the finished table complete with a steel base made by a metal artist I know in Queens. I am very happy with the result, it looks like something you'd buy at ABC Carpet & Home (for those of you non-New Yorkers, ABC is a huge designer store with many unique pieces that are VERY expensive and overpriced)

I chose to design a metal base because I like the contrast in elements. Each material stands on it's own and together they compliment each other.

walnut

Last weekend we went up to Hillsdale w/ Mary & Elliot. Elliot had been introduced to the MOST AMAZING store... it's a lumber yard, but not your typical lumber yard with 2x4's and plywood. They get all kinds of unique, very special, one-of-a-kind pieces of wood. They had 3 barns full of wood! There were pieces 20+ feet tall and 5+ feet wide. There were names of wood I'd never heard of (Bubinga, Tulip Wood, Zebra Wood) and exotic wood (Wenge, Redwood). There was an entire floor devoted to burls. I was mesmerized and in love. So, I bought a piece of Walnut burl. I am going to turn it into a coffee table.
Here it is before:

I sanded it down to a 400 grit sandpaper, so the surface feels like glass. Then I polished it with 3 coats of shellac and 2 coats of wax.

Voila! Beautiful...

Now the only thing missing are the legs. I'm going to have a metal artist I know make me steel legs. It was a really fun process, and I have something totally unique. Not to mention about 20 times cheaper than if I bought it in a design store. :) My new fantasy is to make more and sell them!

weird

A few weeks ago I bought this fruit in the grocery store simply because I had never seen anything like it before! It's called a Dragon Fruit. It is actually the flower (or pre-flower) of a cactus. It looks impressive, but didn't really taste like much, water mostly. But not yummy water like in a watermellon, just kinda bland.

It's real pretty though! Especially inside! I've definitely never seen a fruit so white before.