Table leg thickness question...

[Steve Wurster]

I'm going to be making a play table for my son. The table will be about 40" x 60", and the top will simply be 1.25" thick, made up of plywood with solid wood edging. So nothing too special. Not fine furniture of course, just something that can get beat on and beat up.

My question is, how thick should I make the legs. This is utilitarian, so just simple square legs here. I was planning on a 3" or so apron all the way around, and I figured making the legs also 3" thick would be fine. But I'm not sure if that would look okay (haven't done much drawing of it yet), and I have no idea what a good leg size to table size ratio would be.

Anyone got any suggestions? Thanks.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Steve, my twin 3 year old granddaughters have a professionally built table about that size and the legs are about 3".

What is neat about the table they have, it has an inletted section in the top that can be removed. Under one edge of the table top is a hanger (a removeable dowel rod) on which a roll of paper about 24" wide, is suspended. The paper is unrolled, comes up over the table top and wraps around the inletted portion and the removable section is set back down into the table top. The kids draw on the paper, paint on it, use crayons on it. When a fresh surface is desired, the removable section is raised up, a the old section of paper is cut off, a new section unrolled and wrapped around the removable section and it set back down. The paper currently being used is still attached to the roll. It makes for easy cleanup and fresh surfaces for kids to use.

[Steve Wurster]

Ken, thanks for the info on the leg size.

This table is going to be used for playing with Lego bricks, and so I'll be permanently attaching some Lego base plates to the surface. We currently use our old beat up kitchen table for drawing, etc. Once my son gets older and a bit more "disciplined" I'm going to replace that table with a nice one.

[Sam Stephens]

the legs aren't really the weak link in the equation. it's the apron and attachment to the leg that counts. On a kitchen table of that size, 4" apron at 1" thick is common (M/T into the leg w/ corner brackets or braces). For legs, 2.75" finished thickness is common. You could always taper them if it looked to boxy.

[Steve Wurster]

This will be a short table, so only around 24" tall. But I would like to support changing out the legs for longer ones at some point. So I planned on just using regular corner braces and not M&T construction. Do you think that won't hold up?