Table for More

It took me about 20 hours to make this dining table. Pinned mortises and hunched tenons attach the long apron to the legs, glue and 3/8” diameter dowels hold the shorter aprons and the legs together. The legs may look thin and fragile, but it’s strong enough to hold the very dense solid core flush door I bought at Home Depot as a top. I was lucky enough to find a nice looking grain pattern after only going through three doors. At about 100 lbs each, I couldn’t have inspected many more doors in that stack. I was also careful to go through the stacks of 2x2 oaks and found four 36” pieces that had quarter sawn cuts. Dig long enough at this big box store and you'll find some treasures like the quarter sawn oak I used for the apron. That’s the fun of making my own furniture, you get to choose your wood.

The 1 ¾” thick door gets a 1 ½” thick oak edge treatment, which thins it down a bit, but still too thick for the tapered legs I had made. I had wagered that using a luan solid core door would save me over 6 hours worth of work to make a perfectly flat table top as well as $100 extra dollars. One hour with a jackplane produces a 3/8” bottom bevel on the oak edge. This makes the awkwardly thick top look thinner. Look carefully at the legs and you’ll notice the grain runs along with the taper of the legs, half an hour of visually inspecting all 32 sides to cut the 8 tapers was worth the time. Even though the table looks simple and plain, there are plenty of attentions to detail here.

At 37-1/2" x 61-1/2" x 30" tall the custom table fits the scale of the room nicely as well.The walnut finished dining table goes perfectly with the mismatched collection of seatings I already have.