Dining table
This dining table is a passion project, something I’ve wanted to build for myself for years. It’s a design that’s been in my mind for a long time, and it was finally time to bring it to life. I had a few key requirements in mind when designing it:
It must be sturdy
It should comfortably seat four people
It needs to look natural
It should be transportable if needed
After plenty of research—like figuring out the ideal height for the table to make dining comfortable, how much space to leave between people sitting next to each other, and what type of joinery to use—I landed on my final design.
The table stands 73cm tall, measures 138cm in length, and 86cm in width. The leg assemblies are splayed at a 7-degree angle and feature blind half-dovetail joints on the lower stretchers and blind half-lap joints on the upper stretchers. This design honors the natural physics of splayed legs, with compression at the top and tension at the bottom. The legs are joined with three sets of blind half-dovetails—two at the top and one at the bottom, where it’s a comfortable height to rest your feet. These leg assemblies are joined purely by friction and the strength of the dovetail joints, allowing them to be easily popped out if the table needs to be disassembled for transport. Every single joint was hand-cut—10 blind dovetails and 4 blind half-laps in total.
Since I was using natural pine for the tabletop, I had to carefully arrange the boards during the glue-up process. The growth-ring patterns needed to alternate to prevent the top from "cupping" as the wood naturally expands and contracts with seasonal changes in moisture content. It’s well-known that the glue joints are actually stronger than the wood itself, so proper alignment of the boards was crucial to ensure stability.
Due to financial constraints, I opted for pine instead of oak, which would have been much more expensive but also more durable. The leg assemblies were made from 3x3 stock, the table top from 5x1.5 stock, and the stretchers from 3x2 stock—all hand-selected from a local woodyard.
For the finish, I used high-quality food-safe oils. The legs are treated with beeswax oil, while the tabletop has two coats of Osmo hard wax Top Oil. Every edge is “rounded over” for a pleasant, tactile finish.
This table took around a month to create.
