Barn wood table under the Sassafras Tree

First, let me address some of the questions about this project that I have received so far and maybe anticipate a few more. In no particular order we did not have a plan for the table but rather a concept to use the barn wood. SHE wanted something durable, rectangular, large enough for four people but not to large and relatively simple. We saw a design in a magazine of random slats of wood laid out in an eye-catching pattern and originally thought we could do that. However when I began to mill the wood I was ending up with different thickness pieces as well as different widths. I might mill off the outside rough weathered material to discover a niece rich pine color wood underneath and then another pass would take me into worm wood. Virtually all of the pieces had some amount of twist and bow in them. I had to rip a lot of wider boards to get something I could use on the table. I decided to lay out the pieces on some plywood to get something attractive and functional. Remember, this is barn wood and is going to sit outside or maybe inside the barn in winter. I cut and hand planned all of the edges to create relatively smooth joints and then glued the whole thing up with a good quality woodworkers yellow glue.
When milling this kind of wood you must watch for old metal in it but in this case we had already removed most of the nails and staples from the rough wood. Only once during the milling process did I have to stop the machine when I saw a piece of something imbedded deep in the wood that was only exposed after a couple of passes. I have seen magnets used to detect metal but did not have any to use out here in the backwoods. This is truly a remote, heavily forested location teeming with wildlife. To combat the heat I wear a Tilley hat, a cloth bandanna around my forehead and a wet cloth around my neck. I drink a lot of water during the day and then supplement that with some very fine Yingling around 5 pm!

I have a metal stand that I thought would suffice to hold my table up so last night I mounted the table to it and it works perfectly. I added three plywood support pieces to the bottom of the table with screws and lots of glue and then I screwed the table legs to the center of the assembly. See picture.
Even though I had the power thickness planer I was surprised at the amount of actual hand planing needed to properly bring this project together. Fortuanely I brought from home two of my go to planes; a old Craftsman(identical to a Stanley 4 1/2) and a Stanley 4 1/2 extra wide that i picked up thru a custom restore. Each have a Hoch blade which I sharpened using my EZE lap stones and stropped. Very very sharp and a blessing they were as I put them to task. Boy, it’s fun to plane barn wood and see that color and detail come out. Using these planes I was able to create a nice edging detail to the table and that gave it a finished look. See photo.
My next posting will show the final result and resting place for the project. Stay tuned and thanks for all of the positive feedback I have received!