Project: Upcycle/Upgrade small drop leaf table

So Professor Dr. SWMBO has had this small, drop leaf, "PA Dutch" embellished table for many, many years. It's not an impressive piece of furniture and appears to have originally been a kit from the old Carol Wright company. It's primary job for a long time has been as a plant stand and, well...the water spills and moisture did a number on the painted MDF top. Some folks probably would have trashed this...and to be honest, that was considered here...but we actually had the need for either this table or something to replace it on our three season porch to compliment the seating area.

Hence, this project. Here's how it started. Please don't throw up on your monitor.... ;)

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In general, I actually like this design for what it is. It's relatively simple, reasonably stable and the drop leaves make it both versatile and storable. The construction methods, well...drywall screws and MDF with a few pine sticks probably wasn't the best idea, but it's still lasted for many decades. AFAIK, The Professor has had this thing since long before I met her in 1997.

So what's the project? The base will be used as is, but I replaced the screws with "modern" square drive fasteners and tightened everything up before painting it with a fresh coat of a similar color from my "vast" collection of Orange Borg paint sample containers purchased off the "as is" table for like a buck apiece. It's functional. If I decided to make another one for whatever reason, I'd keep the size and proportions the same, but probably would use better materials and maybe other joinery methods...and glue.

The top is the real project here and took about an hour and a half, not including waiting for finish to dry but including glue time for the "board stretching". :) I had a bunch of bamboo plywood offcuts that were gifted to me a few years ago by another local maker. They were left over from a kitchen project he had completed. This was the perfect material for a replacement table top here...unconditioned space, sweating drinks, etc....and a color that was a very nice "match" for the teak seating area furniture. The existing top was the pattern.

First steps are pretty self-explanatory...

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One of the nice things about this material is that it's not unlike working with rift sawn lumber when it comes to grain matching. I had to glue a narrow piece onto the side of the one larger piece to get the width required and that joint is truly "invisible"...and that's straight off the sliding table saw. TB-III used because of environment and after a half hour of glue curing, the cutting could begin. (While I waited on said glue, I repaired, reinforced and painted the base so no time was wasted)

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The traced shapes were cut at the bandsaw close to the line. The ends of the hand-holds got a nice 25mm bore at the ends and the cuts were completed with a jigsaw.

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There is no point of doing anything fancy with this kind of project. I did consider pattern routing, using the original top pieces as templates, but in the end, I kept it even simpler and just used the OSS to bring things to the line.

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After a little bit of refining, everything lined up very nicely...the original top was not exactly symmetrical so the new one isn't, either. But the leaves and center section contours mate up just right after some tweaking.

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The last step of wood-butchering was to put a dainty, .125" roundover using the router table followed by a whole lot of sanding.

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I had a small container of polymerized tung oil in the cabinet purchased from Lee Valley awhile ago that was unopened. I chose that for this project for the simplicity and applied it before stopping for the day. The resulting color with the bamboo and oil was perfect.

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Final assembly consisted of installing hinges for the drop leaves and screwing the base to the center portion of the top using the existing holes in the frame. Note how the simple, but effective method for holding the leaves up works.

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And at this point...it's done and back to work doing what it does on the three season porch, although probably not as a plant stand anymore. It's more valuable for, um...beverages...at this point. ;)

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We are very pleased with the end result and I seriously am considering making another one for the other end of the loveseat if I can come up with more bamboo material for a matching top.

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This project is not the first time I've taking a piece of furniture that was either cheaply made or in poor condition and either restored or transformed it. Building things from scratch is certainly an enjoyable thing and where a lot of satisfaction comes from, but there is a lot of value in not "taking out the trash" and embracing restore/reuse. This project also was not "fine woodworking"...and that's ok, too.

Looks good Jim
There's probably enough resin/glue in that bamboo top to keep it from cupping or warping out there on the porch.

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Originally Posted by Edward Weber

Looks good Jim
There's probably enough resin/glue in that bamboo top to keep it from cupping or warping out there on the porch.

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Yea, it's really stable stuff. The scraps I had are at least five years in my "inventory", have been in both conditioned and unconditioned space for a good part of it and were about as flat as one could ever hope for in any kind of sheet goods. Gotta love a table top made from grass. :) :D Too bad the darn stuff is so expensive...no question I'd use it a lot more for sure.

Very nice rescue project. That top looks great.

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Originally Posted by Mike Wilkins

Very nice rescue project. That top looks great.

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Thanks, Mike. We are really enjoying it as it absolutely provides a functional benefit to our seating area. I'm already getting more serious about a second one, or at least a second similar table, for the other end of the loveseat. I may have enough of the bamboo ply to make that work and will be checking on that when I go out to the shop later.

Very practical Jim...there is reward in saving an old piece of furniture...one less article in a land fill. A matching one would be nice.

So a little more background on this table....Professor Dr. SWMBO's grandmother originally bought it at a yard sale. Then it somehow made it to her mother's place and then to her when she completed grad school at Harvard (school of public health) and has been with her since. So this thing has been around for a bit, but the MDF does at least indicate it's not "ancient".

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Originally Posted by Mark Rainey

Very practical Jim...there is reward in saving an old piece of furniture...one less article in a land fill. A matching one would be nice.

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Mark, funny you posted that today. I was out running errands and saw a wooden chair in the trash. Nothing great, but a good looking chair and I thought somebody could use that. Sad to see it go into a landfill. Hope somebody grabbed it.

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Originally Posted by Ron Citerone

Mark, funny you posted that today. I was out running errands and saw a wooden chair in the trash. Nothing great, but a good looking chair and I thought somebody could use that. Sad to see it go into a landfill. Hope somebody grabbed it.

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I am glad you feel the same way Ron. And Jim has a good story to tell while his guest sets his drink down on the "new" table.

Im not a big fan of how most modern furniture does not like getting wet. My father bought me a dining table when I got my first house. It was a really nice looking table but a plant was watered in the center and now there is a nice raised section in the middle.

Bamboo on the other hand can go through the dishwasher daily for years before it fails.

That is exactly why I was thrilled to have the bamboo offcuts from a friend available. Looks great but more importantly, it deals with moisture really well. I'm even more thrilled that I had enough to make another tabletop today for a "sorta matching" second table for the other end of the loveseat. It will be a hair smaller and just simple round, but it will look very similar, even with the base. There will be a separate thread on that, probably later in the week.