Table Build Day

In terms of time, it was by far the busiest week for the project. In terms of money, it was by far the worst. In terms of potential, I think it was the best week we’ve had so far!
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It had been a slow few weeks before this, with almost no progress made. I needed to re-engage the time and effort, so I posted pictures of the “Farmhouse Style” table that I built for Pam on Facebook, and offered to build them for others. I thought if I could sell just one, I would give the project a nice boost. 

​Within 2 days, I had two orders from local people wanting tables, one for a rectangular table very similar to the one I had built for Pam, and one for a more complicated, round pedestal table. I discussed some design features with the customers, planned out the table layouts, and quoted prices. On Saturday, I took my plans to the local home improvement store and the project made its largest investment to-date.

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​I bought all of the material to build and finish both table designs, for a total cost of $261. For the current state of the project, that’s a pretty huge number to spend in one day, so it’s making me a little nervous. I think I’ve appropriately mitigated as much risk as possible, getting pre-orders and building tables that could be sold to someone else if need-be.  Plus, because of the way I’m going about this project, we are playing with the house’s money at this point, and the whole purpose is to re-invest our gains to try and advance the project! 

So, on Sunday, I headed to my garage and got my tools out (and also sold the file cabinet I grabbed a few weeks ago at an auction… bonus!). It was a nice day, and pretty comfortable to work outside, and I had a good plan. I worked on the tables for about 7 hours, and really enjoyed it. It was certainly a long and hard day, and quite a different type of work than my day-to-day job. 

​​I got quite a bit done, I’ve nearly finished the rectangular table (I need to let the wood dry for a bit and then attach and finish the top) and got a good jump on the circular table. They are coming together well, and looking pretty good! I think I can finish them up over the next week, and deliver them to our hopefully satisfied customers. 

As far as the profit potential for the tables, I originally quoted our customers $450 for the rectangle table and $500 for the round table. If these sales successfully go through, that means that I will return a profit of $650-700, which more than doubles the total project profit to-date! Plus, I think this is a repeatable venture, and might be worth pursing further.

Once the sales are complete, I will evaluate (and post updates here) on the process and any improvements I can think of, and my thoughts on the business opportunity and if I should pursue it. I do think there’s some pretty good, reproducible opportunity and I really enjoy building things, so I definitely have to consider it!

Thanks again for reading, and follow closely for some exciting updates as we explore this new venture! If you want to stay up-to-date, sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of the page!