While I was helping my dad replace his deck, I got the inspiration to use some of the old redwood decking to make a farmhouse table. I did some research online and came up with a plan. The top is 36"x72". Here's the progress so far:

Here are the original stairs that I used to make the tabletop:



The boards were about 9" wide. I cut them down on the table saw to about 8" and used a 2x6 for the middle board that I cut down to about 5" wide:



I bought a little 12" planer to thickness the boards. It worked well, but sniped about 2 1/4" on each end of the boards. No big deal, I just cut the ends off. I tried to match the grain as much as possible while trying to line up the old screw holes as much as possible:



The hardest and most tedious part so far has been trying to join the edges of the boards together. I don't have a jointer, so I did it by hand. It sounds simple in theory, but I assure you it is not. At least not for a guy with my level of skill (which is almost non-existent). By this time I was getting tired and a little frustrated with the top, so I decided to work on the legs and apron.