We completed the altar for the yoga studio. This was a joint project between Kimberly & I, she provided the old octagonal end table & the vision for what she wanted, I lent support in design & construction.
It began as a very dark (circa 70’s) octagonal end table, it had 6 panels & two swing-out doors. A very bulky piece but within it were the components for the perfect altar. We stared at it for quite a while trying to figure out how to transform it & it sort of fell together as we went. First off it’s solid hardwood, very well made. Began by disassembling it into its components when serendipity struck, the top had warped a tiny bit pulling it apart into two sections about 1/3 & 2/3, once we saw that it made it clear we should use that as the template rather than trying to use the entire piece. This way it would be flush against the wall and a little less imposing.
This is the original piece fully intact:
After we cut the bottom to match the top 1/3, we had a bunch of leftover parts, here's some of them along with one of the panels we removed from the frames:
After disassembly and cutting, we used stripper to get the nasty old stain/varnish off & expose the natural wood underneath. We did one coat then scraped it off after an hour, it took the bulk of the old varnish off but it needed a second application which I let stay on for 24 hours, it did the trick, though after removal it took over a week to fully dry revealing the ultimate color:
a dry fitting of the entire operation, the rear panels were cut down about an inch to match the point where they met the two sides which form the stand to hold the gong, below they're taped while the glue is drying. This is probably two days after the stripper was removed, note how dark the wood still appears, though much lighter than the panels sitting on top which still have the original varnish:
here's a shot about two weeks later when we had progressed to painting the stand red and the threshold black, you can see the size of the channel we filled in by looking at the back part on the left frame, it was a good 1/3 inch wide & 1/2 inch deep, took three putty'ings to get it filled & sanded to give the appearance of a solid piece of wood. There was going to be a color issue as we were planning on staining it to try to match the wood but as we grappled with that she floated the idea of painting it instead, that solved the color issue and also gave a really nice contrast:
closeup of Ganesh
And finally altogether, note how much lighter the wood is, it took about 10 days to finally reach this shade:
Next up is curtains & blinds for the two windows along with some kind of sitting apparatus, that will be it for the entire room, probably a small futon of some kind, a yoga mat & this altar, the perfect yoga/meditation studio; Kimberly practices probably about 2 hours/day 7 days/week and is also an instructor, so this room is a perfect escape for her as she still has a house full of kids at home...
Edit: after living with it for a while we realized the channels in the two side window panes also needed to be filled in & blacked out, this really finished it off nice. Also rubbed it down with some Verathane Finishing Wax, it's hard to tell in the photos but it deepened the color a bit & gave it a nice finish.
