Dining Table

For part of the renovation of my new house I built a dining table. This was my first solo attempt at large furniture. It turned out okay, but there are significant errors in the implementation.

Some things I did right

• I screwed the top planks to a sheet of plywood for stability and ease of construction.
• I made it a little bit bigger than average dining tables, which are often too small to serve a lot of people a lot of food comfortably.
• I made the whole thing about an inch taller than the standard table height, 31-to-32 inches, because that standard was set when Americans were a smaller people.


• I did a good job of sinking the screws in the table deck, and filling in the holes with wood putty.

Some things I could have done better

• I applied the polyeurathane too thick.
• I attached the legs after applying polyeurathane, meaning the screws holding on the legs penetrate the coating.
• I wish I had found a polyeurathane which was more perfectly clear; the one I chose ended up with a mellow yellow tone.

The thickly applied polyeurathane was a serious mistake which caused many problems

• Most seriously, it never perfectly dried. If you leave something heavy on it for a while, it will leave an indent in the tabletop which fades and disappears over the course of minutes or hours.
• In some places where the polyeurathane collected on the edges, bubbles or a layer of air caused permanent malformation. I scraped, sanded, and re-layered those parts.

The overall design is simple but attractive. The half-dozen planks forming the deck are screwed to a piece of plywood. Beneath the plywood is a bifurcated rectangular box made of two-by-fours. By bifurcated, I mean the outer rectangle is bisected side-to-side with a cross-beam. Corners are screwed and glued. The deck is screwed all along the bifurcated rectangle. Finally, pre-made table legs are screwed into the inside corners of the rectangle. Don't forget the felt pads under the legs!