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DIY DINING TABLE

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What You'll Need

– Thirteen 4×4 wood boards – 19 ft of Angle Iron – Minwax Lacquer – Brush – 21ft of 1×3 metal tubing – Spray paint (optional) – Screws

Step 1

We started off by cutting all the wood down to size. Can you see how warped the boards were?  No the table isn’t bend at all!! We got it pretty straightened out with the metal angle iron and some straps.

Step 2

Here they are strapping the wood together!

Step 3

And of course getting that angle iron on.

Step 4

He then marked where he should pre-drill each hole for the wood and used a regular drill to make holes.

Step 5

The next step was securing the wood to the angle iron.

Step 6

He also used a counter sink drill bit to get the screws flush with the surface.

Step 7

We used our electric hand planer to straighten out the edges. Just to give you guys a heads up make sure and do this to both sides before attaching your metal.  We totally forgot to do it to one side and since the wood was so out of shape sanding it down didn’t do much.

Step 8

Following that we moved the strap to the other side of the table top and did the same with the angle iron. Once we removed the straps the wood held it’s shape!! YEYY!!

Step 9

Okay so we’re not pros at 45 degree angles…This probably isn’t the correct way to do this but it seemed to be the easiest. If you look at the photo above on the corner of the table top you’ll see that we simply lay the angle iron overlapping one another. To get our 45 degree angle we simply used our grinder and cut an approximate 45 from the top. When done it looked like the photo below.. BAM !! 45!! No rulers needed. HAHA!

Step 10

Here’s another close up of the 45 angle.

Step 11

And then the art of welding began!! I had no idea my talented hubby could weld so pretty. Simply Perfection!! I know it looks easy but it isn’t. I tried AND I SUCK!! It’s so stinking hard to get a straight line without gaps or crazy bubbles!! So YEY for talented hubby!! (thanks Hunny)

Step 12

We then cut our metal legs to size and lay them onto the bottom of the table. Following that we angled them inward since we wanted to make V shapes. There wasn’t any specific way we angled them just as long as they looked straight. (watch the video for reference)

Step 13

To be extra careful we used a level that magnetically attached to the metal legs to show us how straight we needed to weld them. He went around and tacked each leg with two welds just to see if anything would shift, and guess what they all shifted. So, we bend them back into place. Which was super easy. I think this is much better then welding the whole leg into place only to find out it shifted while welding. The tacks definitely help hold it in place while welding.

Step 14

OKAY!! In all honestly this was my idea!! HAHA! I wanted to practice the V on wood before cutting into the $40 metal. Believe it or not it didn’t help much. I’ll try to explain in as much detail as possible why it didn’t’ work.

Step 15

Before starting we marked the center of the table. If you look close you can see a white line going down the center. Here’s why it didn’t work. We used our miter saw that had a built in 45″ angle cut to cut our wood. Once we cut the wood and lay it down it seemed ok. Following that we cut the metal the same way and lay it out. Keep in mind the wood wasn’t as wide as the metal and therefore it lay different. Also I’m sure the fact that we angled the legs in like that had something to do with it as well.

Step 16

With all that said. Cutting a 45″ angle wasn’t a problem with the metal. The problem was a 45″ degree angle wasn’t needed. Each side need a custom angle in order for the V to be perfectly centered.

Step 17

Here’s where we marked the wood pieces on the metal and cut each piece of metal accordingly. Man I wish I had a picture of how it looked after we cut the metal. HAHA!! I think we got to carried away trying to fix the problem. The metal V was close but not perfect!! So my husband tweaked it a bit to get it to work.

Step 18

Here’s some more pretty welds for ya’ll to see!! These are the legs attached to the table top.

Step 19

And the welding continues. If your wondering what that line across the top is. We spray painted a line to make sure we don’t misplace the wood pieces while in the process of building!! I wouldn’t want to spend another whole hour trying to piece the puzzle together now would I !! 😀 😀

Step 20

Find the difference between these two pictures?! (above and below)  HAHA!! Believe it or not things really shift while welding!! As he was welding the V into place we noticed that the V kept shifting and stuck upwards!! So to fix the problem he put little wood boards on the corners and slightly pushed down on the V while welding! Problem fixed!

Step 21

To finish off the metal he sanded down all the rough lines.. This was way to much work for no reason!! We were debating on leaving the legs silver or spray painting them black.. ?!!  First we were going to go with the silver (raw metal) but, then I decided to spray paint them because I didn’t want them to eventually rust. I think if you were to spray paint them you could just wipe down the metal and spray paint.. Or to be on the safe side give it a light sand.

Step 22

This electric wood planer sure came in handy. I don’t know what we would do without it!!  We literally took off a good 3/4 of an inch off the top of the table to remove all the ugly wood.

Step 23

And finally the boys masked it and spray painted it black with Rustoleum spray paint.  To finish off our top we used lacquer. I didn’t use a wood stain because I wanted it as light as possible. I wish I could of left the top without a protective finish because honestly the color changed from pale to a super contrasted wood grain. It is slowly growing on me though!! 😀

Step 24

So for this table we did 3 coats of gloss lacquer. Then we let it cure for 2 days, gave it a light sand and finished it off with 1 coat of satin lacquer. If that doesn’t make sense we have a satin finish table with 3 heavy coats of gloss under.. 😀

I love rustic wood. This wood grain turned out so beautiful.

Tilted Brush Stroke

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LILY ARDOR

A DIY BLOG, SHARING STORIES OF DESIGN BY LILY ARDOR