Call me prideful but... BEST TABLE EVER!

Posted by Mark

Kimmi and I have discovered a very serious problem with ourselves…. Our taste far outweighs our budget. Thus, this has been the problem on our quest to find the perfect dining room table. In my recollection our current kitchen table was the first piece of furniture Kimmi and I bought together. We got it on sale from K-Mart for like $100 while Kimmi and I were still engaged. The table has served us well but is too small for our new dining room. Not to mention it only seats four so any chance of having more than one other couple over for dinner impossible.  In our scouring of local stores and the internet for tables we ran into two serious problems. 1) We have very serious size constraints. We want bigger, but can’t go too big. We must have a table that fits certain size requirements so we have room to maneuver around the dining room. 2) Any of the few tables that we’ve found to fit are generally WAYYYYY to expensive. We’ve toyed with the idea of having a table built custom, but our favorite furniture builders are too busy to make it for us. (Serves us right for referring them to so many people)Thus we decided to take matters into our own hands. Though we’d like to claim complete design credit ourselves, Kimmi in fact came across a blog which highlighted the building of an awesomely cool herringbone designed table. Though it appeared to be very time consuming, I honestly felt I could tackle such a project. Thus my carpentry project commenced!

(seen inspiration here: http://www.designsponge.com/2011/08/before-after-herringbone-wood-dining-table.html) 

First hurdle: Like our inspiration web site I need to find a door for my base. Solution? KSL classifieds. I found a guy who just so happened to live in Bountiful, selling large heavy doors for $15 bucks a piece! I bought two. One for the table top and one for the legs. These doors are HEAVY! So much so that I can’t maneuver them on my own nor ask Kimmi to help cause she’s too little and couldn’t lift the one side. I either had to use a hand truck to wheel it to where I needed it, or call over a neighbor to help. Kimmi was legitimately concerned that our floor couldn’t sustain such a heavy table.  I'm telling you that these doors were a steal at $15!

Second hurdle: Where to get the wood strips to make the herringbone pattern... The girl from the blog used a collection of Ash strips accumulated over the years by carpenter friends and family.  Because I knew of no such person, I had to think of another idea. Solution? I’d make my own wood strips using the left over pieces of Oak butcher block counter tops from our kitchen renovation! Sure I had to cut a 150+ strips, but it was free!

Third hurdle: I’ve never actually built a table before. Solution? Pretend I know what I’m doing and wing it. Thankfully I never screwed up to bad that couldn’t be fixed.

Lessons learned: “If I were ever to do this again” (Which I won’t because I’m not crazy)

-I would probably invest in a better table saw. The $65 Ryobi I bought off KSL a year or so ago works great for little projects but for cutting 150 strips of 1 ¾ inch think oak butcher block took its toll on the poor little machine and it wasn’t the most accurate. Some strips were thicker on one end then the other. Ect. I sanded most of the problem areas out but still it would have saved me a few days of sanding.

-Apply the wood filler BEFORE you spend four evenings sanding out the edges, because you’re just going to have to spend another 3 evenings sanding off the excess wood filler! I really could have killed two birds with one stone on that one.

-I probably would have taken the extra time and mitered the trim joints. At the time I didn’t really think of it but I will also chalk this up to laziness. After I finished the trim Kimmi asked why I didn’t miter the joints and all I could say was “I don’t know…. Why didn’t I miter them???!!” Oh well, it doesn't look bad. 

Anyway, from start to finish it probably took me a month and a half to finish, working an hour or two in the evenings and a good number of hours on the Saturdays. 

Enjoy a few photos of our journey. 

So this is one of the tables we bought. They were brand new, never used, other then the obvious cutting of the door knob hole. 

To make my 150+ strips I had a few left over butcher bock pieces to choose from

This picture doesn't do justice to the size of the sawdust pile under my table saw. it was at least a foot high. I cut each strip about 1/4" thick and the strips were cut in two lengths. 7" and 8.5"

Spencer enjoyed eating one of my reject strips of wood.

I would paint the back of each strip with wood glue and then use a finishing nailer to secure the strip to the table. Kimmi helped a great deal at this point in the process. I needed my wife's OCD to make the strips perfectly uniform and even. 

The end result.

I then used my circular saw to cut off all the hang over. 

After many hours of sanding with 80, 120, and 220 grit sandpaper

Installed the trim around the outside of the table. You can also see my two table legs off to the left. I used the second door and cut two pieces to the desired size. I then used 1/4" thick oak plywood and laminated it to both sides of the legs. I finished it off by using left over hard wood floor pieces cut to 1/4 inches thick strips as the trim around the legs. The legs are then attached to the table with 8 bolts per leg. This thing is SOLID. 

After the stain and sealer. 

The final product. 

We got a piece of clear glass cut to size as a protection for the table. We figured it would make it easier to clean and deter future children from carving their names in the wood. The chairs are new from Ikea. The decorations were for Spencer's Birthday.

Though this was a very time consuming project, We really couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. Now it's off to the next project!