Dining Room Table

[Don Grubish]

In March I moved in with my girlfriend and neither one of us had a dining room table. I told her don't worry, I'll make us one. She asked me if I knew how to create one, so I took her here to this site and showed her all of my previous projects. After she saw the pie safe, she basically said, "OK, if you know how to make one of those, then you know how to make a dining room table. I trust you."

 

I did have to tell her, though, that I'm not a chair maker. We'd have to find chairs somewhere, so that's what craigslist is for later on. I went to Menards and picked up some oak boards and a 4x4 oak post. My plan was to make a 40x40 inch table top surface and use the post to create a pedestal leg. Here is a close up of the leg.

 

I cut the grooves on the table saw, and then after that I raised the blade and started cutting the notches out of the top and bottom. These will hold my supports, and even the supports have notches cut so they can criss-cross each other. I later used the Kreg bit to drill some pocket holes into the top and bottom pegs, so that when the supports are in, I'll drive in Kreg screws to help secure them in place.

 

Well, this last Sunday I placed the supports in the slots, and then laid the top on the table leg to get an idea of what I'm looking at. Here is that shot I took using my camera phone.

 

 

After a bit of a hiatus, I was back in my shop cutting out more support pieces. If you look at the picture above, You'll see the small angled pieces adjoining the main floor supports. I made more for the upper brackets to help hold the table in place. I routed those smooth and sanded everything. The BIG pain in the butt part of putting this table together was making absolutely CERTAIN that my table would lay flat on the table leg. I can't tell you how many times I rechecked the angle of the main post with my level. I also took into consideration the fact that my garage floor is slanted to flow rain water out of the garage. Once my little platform was level, I kept making sure the post was plum and the supports were level too.

 

After everything was secure, I drilled in more Kreg screws to stiffen the supports and used wood glue and finishing nails to attach the little supports. My next step was to stain everything with Golden Oak stain. If you look below, you will see my attempts. I think it turned out really well! I'm now in the stage of adding coats of finish. I need to apply two more coats tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

[joseph]

I appreciate your work.Nice table.A dining room table is most likely to be the focal point of your dining room or dining area, making it the main item of dining furniture. This is the reason that you should give a lot of thought to the kind of dining room table that you get for your dining room.

[Jens Jensen]

pretty nice my friend JUST dont spill on it or you might be out the door