debarking the stumps

While we’re playing fruit basket turnover in the living room (someone slap me already, I’ve moved the couch four times!) I thought we should go ahead and debark the stumps. We acquired these from the lake over a year ago when Dad had a few trees chopped down. These were the source of a many jokes and eye rolling, especially the branch I insisted we were going to hang over the dining table. That particular piece is long gone, but I have a feeling we’ll be hanging onto these stumps for a while yet.

We gave our stumps a good 18 months to dry out before we removed the bark. I think that was probably a lot longer than necessary.

I used a chisel to start separating the bark from the wood at the top of the stump. Then it was easy to peel it away in big chunks.

Once most of the bark was removed, Caleb used a belt sander and 80 grit paper to smooth out the rough edges and removed loose fibers.

It took about two hours and three sanding belts to complete both stumps. There was a lot to sand.

Before bringing them inside we attached four casters to the bottom of each stump. I love how this photo highlights the dust on my floor. Not. One of these days I’ll learn to vacuum properly.

We have one high stump and one low so I paired them together beside the couch. The higher one catches my coffee cup in the morning and the lower one is stool height. It makes excellent additional seating on game night. I decided not to sand out the marks left by the chainsaw. I sort of like the look.