The Making of a Dining Table

Tracy / October 13, 2011

the making of a table
The making of our dining table was a labor of love.

After years of looking in stores and asking other big families we knew about how they found tables to fit their big families, Paul and I realized we were going to have to break down and build our own.

I’ve found these plans online:

Both truly beautiful, but wow(!), I was not expecting them to cost so much.

Lowe’s had a tutorial in their last magazine for this table:

(I didn’t realize they have an entire You Tube channel with more than 600 DIY videos!)

We started to pray for direction over what we needed and were offered some old restaurant tables when our church decided to buy new tables for the fellowship hall.

At first, I was thinking we might be able to use them in the basement. I kept looking at those wrought iron bases and thinking there had to be some way to use those.

When I mentioned it to Paul, he got pretty excited and we began to plan.

The Construction:

I’ve tried to post photos in a way that allows you to see exactly how our tables were made.

They are basically rectangular frames that have extra bracing from some old 2×4 wood we already owned.

The top is planked with 2×10 lumber.

We finished them the exact same way we finished our planked floors.

Paul screwed the wrought iron bases on each end of the table. I liked the idea of using pedestals instead of legs because you don’t lose leg/seating space where the support legs would have to be placed.

The Results:

We’ve had these tables for a few years now. I think they will probably be here long after we are gone.

The only issue we’ve had with them is that my littles are messy when they eat and that food gets trapped between the boards. It’s not hard to clean out, but certainly not as easy as just washing a table.

I found rolls of vinyl at Walmart in their fabric department and bought 4ft for each table. (I’ve since found it at Hobby Lobby. With a coupon you can purchase it for 40% off!)

It’s been super-easy to clean, has protected our tables and the best part is that as homeschoolers, I can add things under the vinyl that the children are learning. Last year, we had the presidents and vice presidents, the planets, and I can’t remember what else.

Right now, I have a simple US map we are using to track Paul’s travels as he works.

tables dressed for fall

If you would like to see more photos of this project, you can click over to this post.

If you look for very long, you will see we have spent the last five years working on this house in one room or another. We are NO woodworkers- we are just figuring all of this out one project at a time, so— if you are thinking you can’t handle this project, think again! You can do this!!

If you try, I would love to see photos of your project!


2 thoughts on “The Making of a Dining Table

  1. Love the idea of building your own furniture. We plan to do this as well! Check out Ana-white.com. She has TONS of ideas and free plans. Happy building. 🙂

    1. Actually, I think we did look at Ana’s site but settled on these plans instead. Paul is actually using a plan from her site currently to build some twin beds. I love that he is building some of our furniture!! Have you all built anything from her site?

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