The One True Table

Hello All!

This blog has been created to keep everyone up to date on the design and construction of 10 Harrison Way's The One True Table. You might be skeptical, asking yourself: Why should I care about a table? What's the big deal? Who cares? Well, this isn't just any table. Stay along for the ride, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The One True Table is designed to have the sophisticated elegance and beauty of a classic dining room table. Round, to ensure that all who at its edge feel as though they are equal. Painted and stained to give off an aura of eloquent grace. With a stately crest at its core, sitting at The One True Table will be a heavenly experience.

Ok now, all BS aside, this table is going to be sick. Yes, everything said above about the table is true. The true sweetness, however, is what the table turns into. With a zip and a zap (we'll get into that more later) the table will turn from a 5 foot diameter round table into an eight foot long beer pong playing surface.

Since this is a dumb blog about a table, and I'm writing this at work without access to our pictures to give you a visual idea of our progress, I'll continue on with a brief history of the table design.

The story of The One True Table began months ago, when it became apparent that Paul Kreiner, Andrew Ardinger, Alan Schoen, and Chris Hart (The Four) would all be living in the house at 10 Harrison Way beginning in June 2007 (Technically Andrew and Alan don't move in for another month). An outside chance still exists that a mystery 5th roommate might be brewing in secrecy, but who knows... Their mutual love for beer pong and construction projects led them to deside that a beerpong table must be built. The brainstorming process was long and went something like this: table, table needs to be stored so as not to take up space, table can fold down off the wall, table can roll in like a chalk board, table can be half chalk board/half table. In the end, building a dining room table that deployed into a beerpong table was deemed to be the best choice (mostly due to it's flat out dominance, but also because permanent damage could not be inflicted on the house). One day, while talking about how cool it is when submarine captains turn nuke keys at the same time they got to talking about how cool that would be to use in the design. Well, with a little help from modern technology, it is possible -- google ibuttons if you want.

Originally, the table was meant to be rectangular, with deployable slats to extend the length. After discussion, the idea of a round table proved to be very popular.

The next discussion involved painting/design of the table. This was again very iterative, but eventually a radially striped surface with a large crest in the middle was deemed worthy. Paul set to work, and produced a rough sketch of the crest. All details within the crest hold hidden meaning to The Four.

Next up, how to deploy the table extensions? Placing the extension onto drawer sliders mounted under the table was chosen over several other possibilities. Using gas springs or a motor mount were options for actually moving the extensions into position, but in the end having simple springs acting on the two extensions was chosen.

Ok, I've gotten tired of describing all these details. I'll describe more as we post pictures. At this point, we've designed most of everything. We've cut out the table (an inch thick, made of 3/4" particle board and 1/4" Oak) and we've built the frame the supports all our electronics and extensions.

To Summarize this long, boring, but necessary post: We're building a dining room table that uses electric buttons to deploy extensions that morphs the table into beerpong dimensions. This blog will be used to post pictures and updates of the progress.

Thanks.

-Chris