Dining Room Table!

   This was seriously one of the most daunting and challenging DIY projects I've ever attempted, but it was well worth all the time and effort put in. Michael and I live in a really old house which comes with an absolutely ginormous living room and dining room, yet we had no table to actually dine on. So, after looking around online and not really finding anything that was worth buying new or used, I decided to make one. I fell in love with Elsie's table found here, and definitely used this as a template to work off of. 

 First things first, we needed our materials. I knew for certain that I wanted steel hair pin legs on this table. If money wasn't an issue, I would seriously just drill hair pin legs on everything I own. This was the most expensive part of this whole endeavor, totaling at around $115 for a set of four, uncoated, raw steel hairpin legs I found here. The coated feature does add more protection and will be a more finished product, but costs a lot more for each leg. Since this table is staying indoors, there is no real need to worry about rust or anything, but be warned that the untreated legs will leave black marks on your hands. Make sure to wipe them down once you get them. For the wood, we decided to go over to Ganahl Lumber in Anaheim, thinking that since it's our first time doing this we should do it right, even if it costs a tad bit more than Home Depot. We got 4 planks of pine that were 6' long and almost 6" wide, and thinner piece of oak for the frame that were about 6' long each, totaling to about $95. The oak had to be sawed down to fit to size in the frame and supports, and luckily my brother had a simple jigsaw laying around he let me have (yay!). 

On that note, we did have to purchase all new tools, but I see that as more of an investment than anything. For this project, you will need a saw (pictured below), a power drill or nail gun ($20 from Harbor Freight), a belt sander ($12 from Harbor Freight), some 60 or 80 grit sandpaper (~$3), and 3/4" screws (or nails) which also depends on the thickness of your wood. We also purchased honey maple wood stain and a polyurethane coating for finishing. 

 Since this was our first time, we had no idea how structurally stable this was going to end up being with my design for the supports, so we decided to glue the planks of wood together along their length with some wood glue. We got three 3' clamps from Harbor Freight (around $6 each). This is what it looked like once we were done gluing all the planks and outer frame supports together.

      

The next step was adding our supports. This definitely was a trial and error process with shaping around the oak planks we had left. Turns out we did not get enough of the oak planks since the table legs have a thick L shaped bracket. The oak we had was not thick enough to brace the entire width. By pure luck and chance, Mike had gotten 4 planks of cheap wood from Home Depot months earlier so that we can hold our windows up, since they don't stay up. It was a necessity in the summer, but now with winter upon us those planks weren't in much use. Here is the design we ended up using:

      

 Along the frame, we space out the screws about a foot apart on all sides, and had about 5 screws going through each support. We tested it out and it was extremely sturdy and the spacing was all even! Self-five.

Next up the process, was sanding and staining. This was the lengthiest part, since you have to allow ample time between each coat. Make sure to sand the wood in the direction of the grain, lengthwise, or the sanding pattern will be very obvious in the grain once the stain and coat are on. I used a simple foam brush to apply an even coat. I recommend you use separate brushes for the stain and polyurethane coating. I tried washing it, but the residue of the stain will never truly get out of the sponge. Here is how the stain transformed the table and how tiny, yet effective, my belt sander is!

I applied two complete coats of stain, allowing a couple hours dry time in between, and 4 coats of the polyurethane coating, which needs 4 hours of dry time in between each coat. This process took a couple days to finish due to our schedules, but well worth it. And here is the final product!! Now to only work on those awful dated chairs.... but I shall leave that for another post!

-Lori