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.

[Chris Padilla]

Mine is still a pile of boards.

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