Friend of KIT&Co. Kevin Bains from Longmont CO was good enough to share his experience building a dining room table using our 28”x28” double legs. As a novice to woodworking and trying his hand at this level of DIY furnishing project, we wanted to ask about some of the challenges he ran into and what advice he would have for others looking to complete similar projects. After some problem solving along the way, he ended up with a signature piece for his home and is already looking forward to his next DIY project.

Tell us about the project. What were you looking for? Where did you get it and how did you decide? 

Starting out I needed nice wood for a larger dining room table. I scoured Craigslist looking for better pricing than the hardwood dealers I found. Being newer to woodworking, I wasn’t quite ready to invest the money in the wood knowing I might totally screw up this table. I was also pretty certain that this table would not be “the one” and last forever. I found a dealer that had white oak at a very affordable price, but only in 2”x4” sizing. So that meant buying a lot of boards to get to the final 42” width I wanted for this table.

After seeing the wood, I knew it was worth the effort of using the smaller width. The white oak was pretty, and the price was about ¼ of what a hardwood dealer would want.

What questions did you have about it?  

Choosing oak for a dining room table that also serves as the centerpiece of our sitting area was easy. Very durable, matches with the rest of the house. I chose Osmo Top Oil as a food safe finish that is easy to apply and easy to touch up. I figured a film finish would get dinged up and start chipping from daily use. With Osmo, I can just reapply when needed. Even sanding areas that require it will still blend after re-applying Osmo.

I have always been a fan of oak. I like the hardness and durability. Throw in quarter sawn white and I just love the rays. Can’t get enough of that.

Who helped you feel confident in that decision? (websites, retailers, friends/family?) 

This was a solo mission for me. An exercise in trying to build a large, flat table top with the small tools and shop that I had at the time. My wife was very supportive and even helped me layout the boards for the final look. Having pre-made steel legs was not only helpful to complete the look I wanted, but simplified the entire build since I did not have to worry about legs, aprons, attachment, etc. 

Turn out in the end, my suspicions about buying cheaper wood, not from a hardwood dealer would prove accurate. The wood was not dried correctly and still had pretty high moisture content for my dry climate. One of the middle boards split with the change to winter. But, since I had so many small boards in the table top, I was able to cut that board out, re-glue and it looks just as good as when I made it.

I’m already planning on the future replacement for this table top, while keeping the KIT&Co legs. But that would will be an investment and from a local hardwood dealer. The next time around I plan on making a table top that will last at least a decade. Hopefully longer.

What were some other challenges? 

It’s a fairly thick, large sized dining table built wider than normal to create more distance across the table. Almost exclusively for those times when my wife and I are both eating and both on our laptops. We can sit squarely and across from each other with enough room! Otherwise, it’s a large top, seats 6 easily and was built around the steel legs. I used c-channel to keep the table flat and routed out the base plates around the legs so everything was flush to the bottom of the table. No real problems came up with the design as it is very straight forward.

Other than dealing with large pieces of wood, it was pretty easy. But large projects have their own nuances. Getting long boards edge jointed and flat is not easy with smaller tools.