Last year one of our oak trees in the front yard got very sick, all its leaves turned brown, after checking on several options, we decided to let it go. After the tree got cut down, we saved most of the wood from the stump and its trunk. For smaller pieces from the tree trunk, Ales made a beautiful hexagon coffee table set.
We left these pieces out in the sun for a while before deciding what to do with them so it was easy to remove the bark from them once we started the project. Ales spent a few days cutting and trimming these tree trunks into hexagon shapes. Since these are small pieces, our idea was to shape them into hexagon small tables so we can set them together or separately, it's more fun that way. It was super challenging to work these pieces into perfect hexagon shapes (since Ales is a perfectionist).
Once the wood has been cut into shape, next step was sanding. Sanding not only left the wood with a much smoother and functional surface, this step also took away all the dirt and discolored layers on the surface of the wood due to being left outside in the sun (and rain) for many months.
After sanding, we cleaned the wood surface with a damp cloth. After a surface is dried out, Ales applied two coats of stain. We left the wood pieces outside overnight for the stain to dry out.
The final step was to install caster wheels on these. Since these tree trunks are very heavy. We used these 3" heavy-duty caster wheels, each wheel can take up to 110lbs in weight and comes with a brake, we have 4 wheels installed on each trunk. 3 wheels on each could probably have worked, however, we wanted to make sure each trunk is over-supported and is on complete balance. Our dog Eggy likes to kick and scratch things and plays around furniture, so we don't want these to fall or tip over on her.
Here are the pictures of the process from start to finish. Enjoy! Next time when you see tree trunks or stumps left along the curb in the neighborhood, take a shot at repurposing them!