Blue Pine Coffee Table

Desiree is in the process of applying several polycrylic finishing coats to the tabletop we will fasten to our existing living room coffee table. The top started off as a slab of blue pine, cut from a beetle-killed tree felled some thirteen or so years ago.

The pine beetles don’t actually kill the trees when they bore into them to lay eggs. Instead, as the beetles move through the tree, they introduce the blue stain fungus into the tree's inner tissues. The fungus starts growing and spreading within the tree's vascular system, which is responsible for transporting water and nutrients. As the fungus spreads, it blocks the tree's water-conducting vessels and ultimately kills many of the infected trees.

In those places where the blue stain fungus colonizes the wood, it imparts a bluish discoloration to the affected pine trees. This is where the term 'blue pine' comes from. The slab of wood Desiree is working with displays swaths of grayish-blue throughout much of the inner grain.

Desiree Applying a Finish to the Blue Pine

—Mitchell Hegman