Farmhouse Table

Farmhouse Table

Looks great in my Morning Room!

Solving the problem of not having a casual dining set.

Essentially I used these plans from Ana-white.com for her Farmhouse Table Plans. I definitely modified it a little.

Here are the inspirations for the Farmhouse table from much more expensive stores:
Pottery Barn's version of a Rustic Dining Set and bench and chairs.
Restoration Hardwares version of reclaimed wood Farmhouse table and chairs set.

Since I had a ton of leftover wood planks from my sister-in-laws hardwood flooring from next door. I decided instead of using multiple wood planks for the top, like the plan calls for, I'd just use 3 of my wider ones.

First, for the sets of legs for the table I dismantled a cafe height table I already had but never used because the height was awkward and not comfortable. Here is the before piece of furniture I tore apart.

I know, I know I'm sure some people would say (like my mom) "Who takes a perfectly good piece of furniture and tears it apart?" The answer....me! I love to take furniture, dismantle it and then turn it into something else. Its therapeutic for me. In case you are wondering what I am going to do with the rest of it, I am going to turn the top into a coffee table and the stools into benches. So, moving on....

I cut down the legs by about 5 inches and sanded the finish off of the legs with my black and decker orbital sander. Incidentally, since I started wearing a mask only half way through the project, I ended up getting a sinus infection from the sawdust going into my nose and through my sinuses, it was horrible.  I am still taking horse pills for the infection. Lesson learned!

I don't have pics step by step of the construction, but you can see basically what I did.

I started by adding two 1x 6's for the sides to connect the leg ends.

 Then, I reused the diagonal supports from the old table for stability, you can see that here:

 Then I added supports for the top, 1x2's every 8 inches or so. See this:

Then, I built the top. The top consisted of three 12 inch wood flooring planks that were already cut tounge and groove so they fit perfectly together, I glued the grooves then attached from underneath with screws.. I purchased two 1x10's for the breadboard ends.

3 wood planks, I love the character of the wood. 

I attached the breadboards from the top with countersunk screws. I really wanted the rustic look of the countersunk circles so that's why I attached them from the top, not underneath, like I did on the 3 wood planks.

Breadboards are the end pieces.

Counter-sunk screw, filled in with wood filler, then sanded smooth.

Then, on to the other trim. I added a 1x2 support trim under the table top and then some cove moulding just to make it look more finished.

Two piece trim, 1x2 then cove moulding attached with wood glue and finishing brad nails.

Then I sanded, sanded, sanded, with my orbital sander, first with 80 grit then with 120 grit. Again, I wanted this table to look rustic so I really liked some of the not-so- perfect parts of the table.

I mixed a stain of Minwax Provencial and Minwax Ebony. Appx a 3 to 1 ratio mix. I stained it 2 coats, with a rag, then added 4 coats with a paintbrush (lightly sanding with 220 grit sandpaper between each coat) of Minwax poly-crylic  to protect the finish.

After about 2 coats of poly. It needed more. 

The final dimensions are: 36 W x 84 L x 32 H

Here is how it turned out:

Hope you enjoyed this project. Working on the bench and chairs now.

Thanks for checking out this project!

Kristen