Wood selection kills the hall table

Warning: This is a long boring story and is only intended for those who have a keen interest in the psychological turmoil of fine woodworking.  Please feel free to skip to the next post.

The beginnings of this cabinet were a long and drawn out process that began as an idea for a hall table.  After purchasing what I thought was nice black walnut that failed to give me a  nice table top I began searching high and low through the wood room for something that would make a suitable replacement.  I scrubbed plank after plank of everything from french walnut, to arbutus, western maple, hard maple, curly sycamore, chinese elm and finally found a piece of red elm that would provide me with not only the size I needed but also the color and grain graphics that were to be crucial if the table was going to be doable. 

Content with my selection I began milling up the plank, deciding on the placement of each piece I needed from the board.  As I got further into the wood, with thickness being at a critical point, I made a pass through the thickness planer and uncovered an imperfection in what was to be my table-top.  To some it seemed like a feature and many said it added character and that "it's wood!, not laminate"  but I couldn't get past the fact that it looked like a stain.  Especially in the context of a table top, I couldn't live with it and thus was once again left with no suitable wood, and now out 3 or 4 more days.  Determined I went back on the hunt for a piece but soon realized that it wasn't meant to be.  I was discouraged, frustrated and had stopped having fun.  Something had to give and so it did.  I asked Robert if he had a few minutes to talk and we came to the conclusion that maybe for now, the table couldn't be done.  I project cannot be forced onto a piece of wood if the wood isn't offering what you need.  I shared with him a sketch I had put together of a wall cabinet that although simple would at least get me back on track, working and having fun.  I walked out feeling much better, not having given up on the table but simply having delayed it for now.

I felt like I had wasted a week, having accomplished nothing but with the help of Robert and all those around, son realized that wood selection is a huge part of the process, equal to craftsmanship in terms of importance and sometimes it requires more time than planned to find just the right piece of wood.

Below is a mock-up of what the table would have looked like and perhaps one day will look like...