Live edge wood is a great way to instantly add lots of character and visual interest to a space in your home. Live edge pieces of wood retain one of the natural edges of the tree, sometimes with the bark included as well. Live edge furniture is incredibly popular these days, and there are so many different ways to utilize this natural feature of a piece of wood to create something really beautiful and unique. For example, in this stunning finished basement, the customers decided to include a live edge bar top with an epoxy river! Keep reading to learn more about this project.
Live edge river tables are a great project not only for how beautiful they are, but also for how customizable they are. A customer can choose the type of wood and the size of wood that’s used, as well as selecting from a variety of colors for the epoxy river. There’s even the option to have small objects placed in the river, like stones or flowers. Some people even add fake fish!
These clients were initially planning to do a more basic live edge bar top, but later decided to upgrade to a live edge river table bar top to add to their home movie theater. This project was completed by Rob and Jesse, who’ve been doing custom woodworking projects for years in order to provide customers with unique pieces for their homes, such as custom floating shelves and custom doors. The epoxy was completed by Kayleigh, who has been mastering the craft over the past year.
The process of creating a custom river table from start to finish takes somewhere around 27 hours of work over the course of two to three weeks. It starts with the live edge slab itself, which for this application needs to have the bark chipped off to leave a cleaner edge.
Everything then needs to be sanded several times with multiple difference grits to get a nice smooth finish. After this, the wood receives an epoxy coat seal, which has to cure, or harden, for 72 hours. After that, it’s onto the next step.
Once the wood has been sealed, a mold has to be created to hold the tabletop. It will keep the two pieces in the perfect position to allow the gap between the live edges to create the epoxy river while keeping the outer edges nice and parallel, and will keep the liquid epoxy in when it’s poured. The wood is placed inside the mold and the epoxy is mixed up with the colorant to make it blue and is poured in. After pouring, the woodworkers have to watch the epoxy carefully to make sure they catch any bubbles and pop them using heat, such as with a heat gun or torch. Once the bubbles have been nabbed, the river section also needs to cure for several days.
After the curing is complete, the tabletop can finally be removed from the mold. Once it’s out, the edges need to be sanded again with multiple grits, and then the whole thing is given one last coat of epoxy so that the finish is nice and glossy. Once this third coat of epoxy cures for several days, the river table is finally finished and ready to be installed!
This live edge river table bar top came out absolutely stunning, with a nice warm color and perfect glossy shine. Preserving one of the holes in the original slab to pour epoxy into as well as the main river gives it lots of character, and it’s now a great conversation piece in the home theater it was created for. The customers were thrilled with the final outcome!
If you’re interested in an epoxy river table or any other kind of woodworking project for your home in the Berks County area, Eagle Construction can help you! Contact us today to discuss your project.
