I've looked all over this site and spent hours with Google but haven't seen anything like this.
I am building an extension dining table for my daughter who lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, NY. The table will be 24” X 48” and extend with 3 – 12” X 24”leaves to 84” length. The table will be made from Oregon White Oak(Quercus Garryanna) from a tree on our property. This non-commercial oak is harder and thought to be less stable than Eastern White Oak,but I've built 2 previous tables with it and haven't experienced any problems. The wood was air-dried for 2 years, then kiln dried and stored inside my shop for almost 2 years.
I plan to build the table top with 4-1” X 9” X 18” boards as the width of the table. I want to add2” thick live edge pieces as an additional 3” wide edge around the perimeter of the table and leaves, giving a thicker appearance to the entire table. ( The 1” slabs will be glued to a dimension of 18” X 42”, the live edges will add 3” on each of the 4 sides).
My design question is: Can I simply glue these 2” thick X 3” wide live edges to the 1” sides and ends of the thinner 1” wood, or should I treat these edges as bread boards with mortise and tenons, also allowing for expansions and contraction of these small 1” X 9” X 18” planks.
Also, do you think this design will look too busy, given that all the wood is from the same tree and has similar grain characteristics?
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.