DIY Farmhouse Table Tutorial

Our guest blogger had a need for a nice, new dining table that would fit more people around it.  She and her husband–they are newlyweds!– like to entertain, and their tiny, two person table wasn’t working well for that.  What they didn’t need was the hefty price tag that came on the high quality, larger tables they had admired.

Isn’t that a beautiful table?  It’s sitting in our guest blogger’s kitchen, right now, and it’s gorgeous!  Its cost was under $150, thanks to our guest’s savvy  research and DIY spirit.   The newlyweds built it themselves! I’m starting to notice that more and more homeowners are skipping the overpriced furniture stores and DIYing their tables.  It’s a great way to save some moolah and get exactly the style and size of table that you’d like.  Here are some examples:

Rustic Table | Design Happens

Dining Table from Reclaimed Door | Instructables

Farmhouse Table | Tommy & Ellie

Picnic Table Makeover | Making My House a Home

Fancy X Farmhouse Table | Shanty 2 Chic

 Let’s find out now how Ashley and Jesse got the table of their dreams at a price that most homeowners only dream of!

Submitted by:  Attempts at Domestication

Hi! My name is Ashley and I blog at Attempts At Domestication.  I’m a newlywed housewife from Richmond, VA. My husband, Jesse, and I met as kids and dated all through college before getting married in April 2011. We love traveling, watching movies, hanging out with our friends, cooking and Star Wars. I blog about my attempts at DIY, crafts, throw in a lot of random stuff about my life and share recipes from time to time too. My husband and I recently bought our first home so follow along as we make our new house truly ours.

When Jesse and I first started this project we did a whole lot of research on how best to go about building our own table.   Jesse and I went searching for plans for our own table on Ana White’s blog.  We found that her Rustic Table plans best matched what we were looking for, but Jesse being the detailed person that he is didn’t just want to take her measurements and run with them. So we taped off the floor around our old table to decide how large we wanted our own table to be.

Then we went to Lowe’s with our measurements and got all of the supplies we needed. Jesse had the day after we bought all of the supplies off work, so he started working without me. But he was a good little blogger husband and remembered to take some pictures. 

He basically followed Ana White’s plans to a T. 

Until it got to the legs. Ana White used 2×4′s for her legs, but Jesse and I decided we liked the look of chunkier 4×4 legs instead. 

Jesse also did things in a different order, like attaching the legs to the apron before attaching the table top. This did make everything way easier when it came to painting, no tape needed. 

We also stained the bottoms and sides of the tabletop boards before attaching them to the apron. After the top was attached I stained the top side and applied about 3-4 coats of Matte polyurethane. I like the matte finish because it doesn’t add any sheen and makes things look even more rustic; however, we’ll have to add a regular coat of poly as well because the matte is too soft for something that will see such rough use over the years. 

And now for what you’re all wondering about, how much did this project cost us?

• Wood – $86
• Stain (Dark Walnut) – $7.77
• Paint (Olympic Snow Storm) – $11.97
• Polyurethane (Rustoleum Matte finish) – $11.93
• If that is all we needed to buy then our total would have been: $117.67

But Jesse decided that he needed a new drill and we accidentally ruined our brushes and had to buy more, plus we were out of sand paper. We actually ended up still spending just a little over $300, which is still WAY cheaper than we would have paid for a table anywhere else. The chairs are also new purchases, but after I sold our old table and chairs for $80 these chairs ended up only costing us $10. When the weather gets warm again I plan on spray painting them all solid white.

Congratulations on your beautiful, new table, Ashley!  Thanks for sharing it with us.  Remodelaholic readers, if you’ve enjoyed reading about this DIYed table, here are a few more of our posts that you might like:

DIY Outdoor Dining Table | Farmhouse Dining Table | Reclaimed Wood Coffee Table