Old primitive farm table.

This belongs to a friend. It looks like it was made from spare parts. One side has a cross piece between the legs and a thicker, rounder foot on one side and the other end has square pieces and no cross bar and no rounded edges at the foot. The top looks like it may have come from a door, 75" x 35". I took some close up photos of the nails. She found this in the "basement" of the barn when she bought the house 30 years ago. It was covered with inches of dirt and dust and she assumed it was down there for decades. She put the wheels on it so they are not original to the table. Any idea how old this may be?
Thank you.












Table edge'

 

FYI - The house and barn were built in 1890.

 

My opinion only.
Size, shape, way the base is made; makes me think someone made a picnic table out of found materials.

The top looks like house siding, the 2x2s and braces look newer than 1890s.
I would be more inclined to think 1930s-50s home project.

Again only my opinion.

 

I actually looks more commercial,in a 'saleable' sense, than a well made Victorian dining table because the 'rustic' look is more fashionable for new buyers.

Lose the wheels, though.

 

It would be a good size for a picnic table. I think the top is to thick for house siding. She put the wheels on so she could move it around by herself for different projects or storage reasons.

I have barn envy. She has two separate barns. One is a studio/workshop.

 

The wheels may serve another purpose. My parents had a similar table built for our dining room (they were very into early-American-found-in-the-barn stuff). Unfortunately, they forgot to measure. Since we had a collection of Windsors-with-arms, this was a problem. Everyone had to sit on the edge of his chair.

They "solved" the problem by adding wooden um...platforms...under the legs. Which meant that now the table was at everyone's collarbone level. We were a vertically challenged family, you see.

 

I'm trying to picture that.

 

Mill Cove, what area of the country?

 

South of Boston, heading toward Cape Cod.

 

When some movers lost the castors from my dining room table the arm chairs would no longer fit underneath - and I NEEDED to use the table immediately - so I found 8 (yep, eight) of those things you screw into a lamp socket to convert it for a plug.............the little nub on the insert-able end fits nicely into the holes where the castors SHOULD be and the other end is wide and flat enough to be stable, and they are dark brown so they blend with the wood nicely.

Note I said "FITS" - yeah, 10 years later, I am still using them..............and you may ask WHY I had 8 of those things - I actually had about 2 dozen - we lived in an historic house that was electrified in the 1910s - with ceiling fixtures and wall scones and ONE outlet in each room, except the dining room which had NO outlets.....................so to hoover you had unscrew a bulb, screw in a socket and hope you didn't strangle yourself on the cord dangling from the chandelier.....

 

Eegad! Mansons, I remember seeing that arrangement in the house of one of my grandmother's friends. Being a frightfully well-brought up six-year old, I knew better than to ask. And when we got home, I forgot -- never thought about it again until now. But now I KNOW!! Many thanks!

 

Today, they call that "re-purposing".

 

I can speak only for my geographic region but . . . not all areas call it "re-purposing."

In this neck of the woods it is still called "make do" or "making do or "made do."

Translation -- making it workable or usable for whatever period of time you are so inclined to leave it with that "repair."

 

Think the top is old; maybe a door, stall divider, or siding as suggested. The base was made to convert it to a table at some much later date.

 

Thanks Brad.

 

Thanks Mill. I don't want to guess at the type of wood since it is from an area with which I am not familiar. If it were from the south, I'd ask you if it was a light weight piece, as the grain looks wide and much like cypress wood from what little I can see of it.

 

It does appear to be some type of pine.

 

Yeah probably so Brad.