Homemade Farmhouse table



It all started after sitting in this dining room, at this hand-me-down table and wishing I could see out the window. The dining room, I think, was once a bedroom. The bookshelf unit behind used to be an ugly closet,  (more on that later!) and the previous owner took out the doors and made curved doorways. It looks awesome, but is a smallish, dark kind of room. After 3 paint colors, I am loving the pumpkin. But we never spend any time in there, since it's dark and uncomfortable. I toyed with the idea of putting in a bigger window. But we're not ready for that yet.

I moved the furniture around and around, tried to make it a lounge/bar/library area...anything to get more use out of the room. Finally we decided that we'd buy a bigger table and more comfy chairs. After venturing out onto the shoppers abyss, we considered dropping $1,000 on a counter-height chair/table combo from a decent furniture store. Thing was, even at a grand the table top was cheapy-looking wood veneer. Ugh. Why isn't anything made out of good wood these days? We loved an Amish table we found, but it was about $3,000. So.... with that inspiration, we decided to make one to own specifications!


Brandon did the measuring and cutting (ugh! Details!) and I got to do the planning, staining and finishing. Also the chair-picking. This is the table in the garage before the polyurethane. We ended up staining it black because we were to cheap to get all matching, nice wood, so a lighter stain would have revealed the greenish tint of the poplar tabletop, and the reddish tint of the base. Oops. I know that now for next time. The legs are straight-up 4x4s, with 2x2 beams for support and random poplar timbers for the top. Brandon was very worried this would end up looking like a picnic table, but once we got the right chairs for it, it looks just fine!

If I had to do it again, I would make it a little bigger. We got the height right, but the chairs are a tad tight. Otherwise, I love the thing. I can stand on it, even dance on it! And now we have a great view out the window when we're eating, studying, reading, whatever. We've moved back into that room! Yay! 

We distressed the top with chains... fun!
Four chairs from Overstock.com, very comfy!
In all, we spent about $600 on the table. But... that was only because we bought a chop saw from Dewalt for $300! I think the chairs ran about $300 also. But now we have a table that will last forever, and if we can get sick of it, it will be right at home on the deck. We also scored a nice tool that we'd have probably been too cheap to buy otherwise!

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