Custom Dining Room Table in the Making: Assembly and staining

We’re back to update you with another post about our dining room table that we’re making with the help of Tom’s grandpa.  If you didn’t get a chance to check out the first post, here it is!

Grandpa did a ton of work on the table, and so we headed out on a beautiful fall day to help. Before we even got started, we went out to the shed for supplies and I asked him if he knew how cool he is with this old barnwood door on the sliding track. He just smiled. 😀 I think we’ve got the swankiest grandpa this side of the Mississippi ladies and gents!

Here is where the table was when we started that day. I would say here it is about 75% done.  We used a combination of Oak, Ash and Pine wood for this table – but the best part is that it is all reclaimed wood.  The top was assembled by drilling holes through the wood and utilizing dowels and woodglue to bond them all together.

The first step was to work on feathering in the staining process on the top of the table using our Minwax Wood Finish stain in Dark Walnut. We had already stained the majority of the wood before the top was put together and after it was assembled, it had to be sanded.  Feathering is when you use a cloth to concentrate stain in specific areas (sanded vs. unsanded.) We did this very selectively and let it dry because later we went over it with an overall coat.

The end of the table has the option to extend (leaf brace pulled out in this picture above) for even more seating.  The leaf portion wasn’t stained the last time we worked on it, so we taped off the areas we didn’t want stain getting on and gave it a go. The actual leaf needs to be assembled, but we followed the same process as we did for the top of the table and stained the planks first.

 

The next portion of the day was spent working on the bottom of the table. We wanted to fill in the holes from where the screws are screwed in for a cleaner look.

Here were my tools for the job: good glue, tooth pick, rags, wood plugs, a piece of wood and a hammer. 

Using the toothpick and a dab of glue, I put some into the screw hole and then inserted a small wood plug.

  I then used my scrap piece of wood and a hamer to put the plug into place in the screw hole.  Tip: using the scrap piece of wood allows you to complete this process without damaging your wood.

Once I had repeated that step for all the holes, I gave everything a good sand.

  Our last step that day was to do an overall stain on the table to make sure we have everything covered.

  
  

Then, it was time to take a break and let everything dry.  The next step will be to add the Minwax wipe-on poly and the hardware to really make it look like the beloved Pottery Barn Benchwright dining room table. We can’t wait to entertain and make memories sitting around this very special piece!

Questions? Comments?  Leave them below!  And remember to always reclaim, reuse and upcycle!