Mosaic Dining Table

What to do when you find that a gust a wind causes your market umbrella to shatter your glass patio table?  Well you could have a piece of glass or acrylic cut to fit.  But that's not very fun or interesting.  While we were picking up the tiny pieces of tempered glass I had an idea.  Why not make my own mosaic table?  I had thought about it before but I never had the right frame to use.

 Our table is sort of an odd shape.  The best way to describe it is an oval with semi squared off ends.  We don't have a jigsaw so we created a template out of wrapping paper and brought it to the local lumber yard.  We found a piece of marine grade plywood that would fit the depth of the existing frame and allow room for the mosaic tile. I painted the underside of the table with exterior patio paint that was left over from painting our porch and primed the top with a mosaic primer for wood.  We attached the wood to the frame with Liquid Nails and applied pressure so the wood did to bow in the center.

Now it was up to me to make this happen.  I had done a few mosaic projects before, i.e. coasters.  It was quite daunting to sit at this six person dining table with a blank canvas.  I sketched out a design that was based on floor mosaics that my husband and I saw on our recent trip to Greece and Turkey.

Floor from the Castle of the Knights, Island of Rhodes, GR

Detail of a pomegranate, Istanbul, Turkey

A quick sketch of the table.

Once I had the table sketched on paper I transferred it to the plywood.  The grape vine design has a balance of organic and geometric motifs.  The R monogram is for our last name and the grapes were part of our Mediterranean wedding theme.

I used 3/4" glass mosaic tiles, tesserae, that were cut into rectangles, squares, circles and triangles depending on which object I was making.  I glued the black inset border first, then grape vines, grape clusters, and leaves.  The field was left for last.  I chose the Opus Musivum flow or "Andamento" for the field that creates a dynamic flow because the field tesserae are cut to follow the contour of the objects.

Nipper, dry wheel glass cutters,  pick, spatula, caulking gun

I picked a pink neutral champagne color tile for the field.  Each tile has a mix of pink, white and gold that also added to the movement.  To finish it off my husband grouted the table with a linen colored grout that blended perfectly.

Completed table

Cooper and Belle, The Tipsy Terriers approve

In a future post I will write more about our trip to Greece and Turkey as well as other trips that have inspired many projects in the pub, garden and home.