The Wife Wants a Dining Room Table

[John Goodin]

Wifey comes home and says "I have to go to Europe for business in October." After a few minutes on the computer I reply, "For 1200 bucks I can join you." Without missing a beat she says, "I would rather have a dining room table." So the dilemma now is what material to make it from. We are non formal family who now live in a home with a empty formal dining room. We would like some thing fairly rustic with straight lines but not the log furniture that is commonly found in a Montana millionaire's lodge. So besides a few family gatherings a year it will most likely be used as a dumping ground for my kids backpacks, school junk and packages from Amazon.


I have a growing interest in reclaimed materials and would like for the wood to have a history behind it. My first choice was repurposed oak floors from freight train boxcars, but at $25 per foot of 2X12 plus a six hour round trip drive the price is steep. (BTW, my wife works in transportation.) Skip sawn oak 2X material from old barns is also available for 8 per board foot plus shipping. However, for a little less ($7.25) and no shipping old growth, virgin river reclaimed cypress cut in the early 1900s is available. Probably the coolest is 100 year old cypress from the fermentation tanks of the Wild Turkey Distillery. That however, is $12 a board foot. My biggest question is if the cypress is too soft a wood for a dining room table? If the kids do homework on cypress will the writing telegraph through and forever remind our third grader that she once thought 8X2=18? Since it is going to be rustic I would prefer a finish that does not build-up a thick film but obviously need some protection. Any thoughts and opinions or suggestions for other materials would be appreciated. I live in central Texas so most of the reclaimed barn wood around here is pine.

[Andrew Hughes]

I think you should choose wood that grabs you when your out on the scout. Cypress may be too soft have you seen it in person and gave it the scientific finger nail test.?Cant help with finish too much too consider,Time,cost,skills.
I also have been holding out building a table for our house,I want wood all from the same tree.Wanting to harvest a live oak locally,anyway my quest wood will become a English Hayrake table.
Good Luck with your build sounds like fun.Aj

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I salvaged two huge sailboat masts that turned out to be Douglas Fir. It is a beautiful wood that would lend itself well to a "rustic" design. If I built a table out of it, I would build a trestle type base.

Where you live there are many options: cypress, oak, chestnut, pine... too many to list. I live on an island, so I have few options for wood, hence I was really excited to get to work with Douglas Fir. What I really love about it is the end grain is beautiful. I imagine something with through-tenons showing with that beautiful end-grain.

As for the cypress, it's funny you mention this. I went yesterday to my lumber supplier for some local mahogany (yes, there ARE advantages to living on an island) and to my surprise, there on the rack are these huge 4" x 6" beams of clear-grained lumber. I immediately asked what it was and he said Birch. I nearly fainted, because I have long wanted to build a Ruobo bench, and birch would do just fine for me. Well, to my dismay, he was mistaken- it is cypress. Great for me still, because I build boats, and it would work perfect for that, but not great for the bench, or probably for your table top. I have seen many different variations of cypress, however, and have seen it quite hard. What I have available here is very soft stuff, so my comments are based on that.

Anyway, it sounds like you want a country type table, so I vote on a trestle table with through-tenons all out of douglas fir and let the end grain show.

[Harold Burrell]

I'm in the middle of building one of these...

[Chris Padilla]

Since you're into reclaimed wood (where are you located?), chestnut might also be an option for you. I've always thought of it as a bit of a rustic looking wood. But really, one can make any wood into "rustic" depending upon how one defines rustic.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Everything is right about Harold's table. Love the dovetailed keys and the pinned endcaps.

[David Eisenhauer]

I am in the greater Austin area and found some reclaimed long leaf yellow pine flooring years ago that resulted in an outstanding table if I may say so myself. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I sourced it (locally), but believe it was a local mill shop. Also, I was able to pick up some reclaimed chestnut from an architectural mill shop that brought in a big order from the East coast where the chestnut was formerly used as ceiling joists and rafters. That stuff still had square nails in it that left black rust stains where other nails had been, so I left the divots where the nails had been pulled out from and the black stain (after smoothing for finishing) for a rustic look. That too came out well for coffee and end tables, ottoman, etc.

[John Goodin]

Has the long leaf YP hold up? I am in Cedar Park and know there is a company in Johnson City that has some. Seen pics on craigslist and is pretty.

[John Goodin]

Can't show that to my wife. She might want to hire you to make it, which is a weird form of infidelity in my book. I'd also be out a trip to Europe and the ability to make her feel guilty every time I tell the story about how the table came in to being. Nice work.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Wifey comes home and says "I have to go to Europe for business in October." After a few minutes on the computer I reply, "For 1200 bucks I can join you." Without missing a beat she says, "I would rather have a dining room table."

OUCH. Dude, that had to hurt.

[Harold Burrell]

Can't show that to my wife. She might want to hire you to make it, which is a weird form of infidelity in my book. I'd also be out a trip to Europe and the ability to make her feel guilty every time I tell the story about how the table came in to being. Nice work.

No...WAIT!!!

I didn't make that table. That is a picture from the plans that I am working from.

Mine is still a pile of boards. :o

[Chris Padilla]

Mine is still a pile of boards. :o

Similar-species-of-wood boards I hope! ;) hehehe....

[Harold Burrell]

Similar-species-of-wood boards I hope! ;) hehehe....

Well...they're brown! Does that count???

[David Eisenhauer]

L Leaf pine has held up very well. It has fairly dramatic grain lines that work well with the semi-rustic, Greene's look IMO. I'd imagine not for use in a more formal setting, more of the "farmhouse kitchen table" look. Where in Johnson City? I might go for more if you don't take it all.

[John TenEyck]

I would buy the nicest wood I could find that added up to - $1200. Or maybe more.

John

[Chris Friesen]

I really like this design (Chris Schwarz's trestle table from Woodworking magazine):

http://d2amilv9vi9flo.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/American_Trestle_Table1.pdf

http://blog.lostartpress.com/2009/01/03/a-thousand-meals-five-lessons/

296492

[Kent A Bathurst]

At my point on the space-time continuum, $12/BF for a focal piece, heirloom quality, dining room table is very cheap. I am usually in the $18 - $20 range, at least for the "show" surfaces.

Cry once. You will be using it forever, and hopefully so will your grandkids' grandkids.

[John Goodin]

differentthanotherhouses.com

They post adds on craigslist list with some nice pics. Some of the material comes in pretty large sizes too.

[John Goodin]

I am by far the witty of the two of us and this was the best she burned me in quite awhile. I was kind of proud of her.

[glenn bradley]

I'm with Andrew on wanting the material to match well as I don't often use colorants. The hayrake table Harold shows is a classic design and a real looker. If you are going to stain the wood a specific color, you can be more lenient with the material match if you are good with toning things to match. A harder wood with a nice varnish would get my vote versus a softer material with a layer of plastic (polyurethane) over it for protection but, this will vary with use. If you have teenagers in the house or young children, poly makes good sense for its resiliency; I just don't like the "look" of it most times. JMHO.

[Tom Scott]

John,
In Texas, reclaimed Southern Yellow Pine is not too hard to come by. I recently finished a 9' long dining table made of reclaimed pine...not formal, kind of on the rustic side, but clean lines.

[Harold Burrell]

John,
In Texas, reclaimed Southern Yellow Pine is not too hard to come by. I recently finished a 9' long dining table made of reclaimed pine...not formal, kind of on the rustic side, but clean lines.

Wow! Nice job!

How thick is that top? How wide are your breadboard ends?

[Jim Becker]

Yes, choose a species that makes you smile. If "rustic without looking rustic" is the idea, straight-grained doug fir can be really beautiful in that kind of setting where you build something "beefy" and simple. It also oils up beautifully prior to final finish.

I know that you have concerns about the board foot cost of material...and it must be of consideration...but as I've paraphrased many times, finishing starts with material selection; choose well for grain and color up front and the end result will be extraordinarily more pleasing as well as easier to achieve.

[Tom Scott]

Wow! Nice job!

How thick is that top? How wide are your breadboard ends?

The top finished out about 1-1/4" and the breadboard ends were 5" wide. It's a heavy one.

[Danny Hamsley]

Tom,

I would love to see a pic of the underside of your table.

[Tom Scott]

Tom,

I would love to see a pic of the underside of your table.

Is this what you're looking for? Again, very simple...

[Scott T Smith]

Hi John. I think that you will find that cypress is definitely too soft for a dining room table. I milled some 600 - 1000 year old cypress logs last year, and the wood - although gorgeous - would be too soft for writing on. A photo of the wood is shown in reply #15 in this thread:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?194697-A-very-uncommon-project

SYP is ok, but also a bit soft - especially when compared with oak, hickory/pecan, mesquite, etc.

If you're budget can swing the cost of a slab, there is an outstanding miller located just outside of Austin towards Bastrop. His name is Brandon Berdoll and he specializes in milling and drying large slabs. He also may have some rustic 8/4 pecan, mesquite or oak that would be suitable for a table top. He is a super nice guy and produces an excellent product.

Here is a link to Brandon's web site: http://berdollsawmill.com/

Best of success to you with your project!

Scott