We had been talking for a long time about getting a really nice dinner table. I did my best to keep it a secret from my wife that I was doing this. I was basically embezzling from ourselves to pay for it because she's like a financial hawk. It wasn't easy and not a total success of keeping it a secret. Especially since I was only able to work on it sporadically, it took a really long time and ended up being a month late for Christmas. I had to tell her on Christmas morning, "I do have a gift for you... but... it's not ready yet."
I started this project in October, 2014 and finished on February 1, 2015.
Big shout out to my pops for all his help and expertise. I had the vision for it, but he helped me make it become reality.
Wood: Two mill cut slabs of live edge maple and a piece of walnut for a center accent. The maple slabs were not perfectly rectangular. They were matching pieces but about 4 inches wider at one end. Also they were air dried, not kiln dried, so they had fair bit of warping and needed to be planed flat. They were too wide and to fit the planer so I had the mill rip the slabs into boards that could fit the planer. Not my preferred choice, as I wanted to keep them as solid slabs, but I had no other option.
The walnut piece was a drop off from someone else's order at the mill and was already shaped like a long triangle so I used it as decorative way of making the irregular shaped slabs not so apparent.
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We used pocket screws and glue biscuits to rejoin the boards together one at a time.
The legs are made of simple 4x4 Douglas Fir posts. I wanted it to be quite sturdy and have a farm table look, so we added 45 degree supports. I only lightly sanded the legs to get the roughness off, but didn't make them smooth like the top. For a modern look, I painted the legs white.
To increase the strength of the legs, we assembled the legs to oak boards which were then bolted to the bottom of the table. You could dance on top of this table. We used a router to bevel the edges of the oak boards.
Again, we used the router to cut 3 inlay holes in the center of the table top for ceramic tiles.
The walnut piece was not quite long enough to span the full length of the table so we cut it into sections and spaced them out to fit the length and covered the gaps with the tiles.
I usually prefer darker wood colors, but i wanted to keep the color contrast between the maple and walnut, so I used Minwax Golden Oak. It does very nice job of highlighting the grain and features of the wood and is a nice mid-tone color.
For a top coat I used 5 coats of Minwax Wipe-On Polyurethane and then a coat of wax polish.
I wanted to give it one final touch of class that would really make it an heirloom piece. I had a custom brass plate engraved with Psalm 128:1-3.
How happy is everyone who fears Adonai, who lives by his ways. You will eat what your hands have produced; you will be happy and prosperous. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the inner parts of your house.Your children around the table will be like shoots from an olive tree.
Lanphear Family Est. 2008
Who wants to join us for dinner? :)
