Farmhouse-ish Dining Table - Finally Done!

[Tom Bain]

I've been working on this table since March and finally completed it over the long weekend. Our home is a modern-ish farmhouse and my wife wanted something that would work with that style. I decided I wanted to use a rustic wood but in a more refined form than a normal chunky farmhouse table. My design went through A LOT of iterations and sort of combines several styles, including some Greene and Greene flourishes. The wood is reclaimed wormy chestnut with ebony accents. I only filled those imperfections that I thought might cause issues with the joinery or weren't entirely stable, leaving as much character as I could. The finish is a custom stain (mostly to even out the wide color variation in the chestnut boards) followed by Osmo Poly-x. It was a rewarding project with some fun challenges, and looking forward to some good meals in the years to come.

-Tom

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[Von Bickley]

Great looking wood and a great looking table. The curved legs the ebony plugs and the cloud lift on the bottom rails look great. This is a piece of fine furniture.

[Andrew Hughes]

I like it. The curved sweeping legs look nice.
The boards you layed up for the top look good.

[Tom Bender]

A beautiful application of G&G details.

The joinery to wide breadboard ends looks vulnerable when the table is picked up. Do they seem secure?

[Jim Becker]

That's stunning, Tom! The base just elevates this in a huge way.

[Bill Carey]

Wonderful table Tom. The design of the base is great. Can you share how the leaves are installed?

[Jim Tobias]

Beautiful!! When you take wormy chestnut and take it above it's natural look(which is gorgeous), you've done something special.
I really like it.

Jim

[Tom Bain]

A beautiful application of G&G details.

The joinery to wide breadboard ends looks vulnerable when the table is picked up. Do they seem secure?

Tom -- Thanks, the breadboard ends were a concern so I made them extra beefy. The tenons are 3.75" long and go more than half-way into the breadboards. It was a real chore to drill and chisel those mortises!

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[Tom Bain]

Wonderful table Tom. The design of the base is great. Can you share how the leaves are installed?

Bill -- Thank you and sure thing. I really didn't want a center leaf and the resulting giant seam in the middle of the table, so decided to go with end leaves. It took a little engineering to figure out how to do that and not detract visually. There may be better/easier approaches, but this is what I came up with. I basically hid the supports for the leaves, which are 3/4" square steel tubing, inside the upper stretchers. There are wooden "handles" epoxied to the steel tubes with finger pulls drilled in them. I shaped the ends of the stretchers and the "handles" together to make it as seamless as possible. There are also 1/4" holes drilled into the sides of the tubes and the stretchers to accommodate a t-handled steel pin which holds the supports in place or in the extended position. Finally, there are table yokes underneath to hold the leaves to the table when in use.

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[Ken Fitzgerald]

What a beautiful dining table! I really like the Greene and Greene touches! In both design and execution, well done Sir!

[Mark Rainey]

Tom, that is one fine table, sturdy yet stylistic. And what a choice of wood! We rarely see chestnut on this forum. As a guy who enjoys hand tools, I would love to work with chestnut boards.

[Bill Carey]

Pretty ingenious on those leaves Tom. I like your solution. I may have one more big table in me and if I do I'll probably steal your solutions. Thx for showing it.

[Tim Andrews]

Tom, that’s a beautiful table. Well designed and executed.