Modern Farmhouse Table: Construction

Well…..I just completed another building project….and this one I tried to document as best as I could. My brother asked me to build him a new kitchen table so I once again browsed some building plans from ana-white.com. I came across this one; http://ana-white.com/2010/02/plans-narrow-farmhouse-table-beginner.html and really liked and it was approved by Ted. I made some changes to the building plan but this is probably the most closely followed Ana-White plan that I’ve used. Mostly, I just changed the dimensions of the table and left-out the end stretcher since it’s going to be used as a kitchen table. I also tweaked the same building plan to make a bench to match.

Anyways, I jotted down all my notes/measurements and headed off to Lowe’s. I tried to maximize all my cuts and buy the least amount of wood possible. I was thinking that if I bought 10’ or 12’ long pieces that it would be cheaper than a 8’ section but the price/ft is actually cheaper for 8’ lengths. I purchased all premium whitewood boards and bought some 2x2”s, 1x4”s, 1x6”s, and 1x8”s. They fit nicely in my Scion. I also purchased some screws and some paint (more on the finish to come later).

For the tabletop, I decided on 5-1x8”s at 72”….I was actually able to buy 6’ lengths, so no cuts were needed for that….awesome! I then moved forward and cut everything needed with my miter saw. I made separate piles for the bench and then for the table. After everything was cut, I focused my attention on to tapering the legs. Ana-White’s plan made it look pretty simple with some precise measurements but when I tried to cut the first piece on my table saw….it wasn’t quite perfect and it wasn’t something that was going to be easily replicable. So I used that first one as a template for all the others. I added the width of the template to the desired width of the end product and set my table saw fence to that width. I then ran both the template and the table leg through the table saw at the same time. This created 8 identical tapered legs and then another 8 legs for the bench. Since I used all 1x4”s, I needed to cut off 3/4” of half the legs so that they would be square.

Once they were tapered and paired up, I drilled some pocket holes AND I used a biscuit cutter (given to me by Dave Noble) to cut in some holes for biscuits. I put some glue on the biscuits, clamped it all together, and then screwed it all together to hold it strong while the glue dried. Once dried, I put some wood filler in the bottom pocket holes and used my router (also given to me by Dave Noble) to round off all the edges.

The table/bench legs took a really long time to put together but I think it was time worth spent. The tapered effect makes it look pretty professional and rounded edges are always nice.