Our Piece of Split House: DIY Hairpin Leg Dining Table

Our "dining room" has been a source of contention for a few years now. I say "dining room" because we are talking about a 8x7 area of space - hardly adequate dining room material. It's cool though - most of our meals are centered around our sofa. Our ability to balance plates has been mastered.

But, with a kiddo coming, and the holiday season upon us, it's time we retire the sofa, and actually sit and stare at one another. Do I dare say, converse?

I'll tell you, the thought has always been there to utilize our dining room space. Which is why we have gone through 3, soon to be 4 dining room tables in less than a year.

First we had our pine harvest table - pretty, but pretty big. And, for all of you wood fanatics, you are probably aware that pine is annoyingly soft wood. I swear putting a fork on the table left an imprint.

We sold our harvest table and graduated to a Versa table from West Elm... because that's what adults do. But it ended up being way too small. Two chairs, easy. Four? Hard. A great pet peeve of mine is when you can't push your chair in all the way. I'll chalk it up to being a preschool teacher in another life, and seeing kids smash their faces on the ground after tangling their feet in the legs. I mean, I'm okay with my face.

Credit: West Elm

As of now, our lovely Versa table is hanging out in the basement, soon to be used as a Lego landing station for epic builds. After the Versa, we opted for a round table - haven't tried that shape yet! Round, danish style tables aren't the easiest to comeby, and the ones we did see were either white, or more bang than what we had for bucks. We took to AllModern for a solution, and found one with deep discounts. The table was easy to assemble, and certainly great quality for $250.00, but we were back to square one, again, with the chairs not having space to be pushed in. The table has a nice walnut finish, but I don't exactly know the type of wood used - it's soft or faux, this I know, because we nicked it up with little difficulty.

Credit: Felices Dining Table - All Modern

A week ago I started looking around for yet another table. I've always had a thing for hairpin legs, and found a nice little set on Amazon. With little thought, I ordered four 28" legs in black matte, and started reading up on other desperate DIY dining room table enthusiasts. I found some great tutorials on DIY Hairpin Leg dining tables that are very simple. You can check them out here and here.

Now that I had my inspiration, all that was left was to convince the hubby that we needed this. And because pregnancy trumps all... well, there you have it.

Sometimes in order to get what you want, you have to do your research. In this case, research meant measurements. I took some painters tape and measured a 40" x 6' space and marked it off. Visuals are huge with the husbands, ladies.

The other DIY table sites went with premium wood boards from the lumber yard. Most boards in the lumber yard are pine, and since we have already dealt with a soft table, we wanted to check out some other options. Our town doesn't have a lumber yard with specialty/exotic wood that I'm familiar with, so Menards seems to be our go-to. There, we checked out their specialty plastic-wrapped wood. In the past, we have used a lot of poplar for projects because of its gorgeous variance. But if you look at the wood scale, poplar is, once again, soft. And for those of you whose mind went there (like mine every time I type wood, soft or hard), I'm talking about trees, although I'm sure we can all agree that hard is always best no matter the situation.

This go around, we grabbed four 1"x8"x6' maple boards and one 1"x6"x6' hickory board (to use as a decorative runner essentially). All hardwood.

Another thing we did differently is we used the Kreg Jig instead of screws and a drill to get the tightness and precision we were looking for. Both ways will create a stunning table, but if you are seeking longevity, maybe check into a Kreg. Pretty inexpensive ($39.98) for the magnitude of what it can do.

Once all pieces were secure, we attached some supports underneath using premium oak from the lumberyard. First, we pre-drilled our holes to avoid splintering before securing the wood using screws.

After the supports were in (underside):

Topside of table:

The table was stained using Varathane wood stain in dark walnut, to match our cafe chairs. After applying the stain, wait 3-4 minutes before wiping off the excess. Reapply as needed to achieve your desired color. We opted to do one layer to achieve the look we were going for. To help aid in protecting the wood finish, add 3-4 coats of clear matte polycrylic, lightly sanding with 220 grit sandpaper in between coats. Like other sites, I would agree that using a coaster for cold, sweaty beverages will help protect the table, and prevent any unnecessary water marks.

Staining process:

Once the table dried, we attached the hairpin legs. Our hope is that this little table will stick with us for awhile as our family grows and memories are centered around it for generations to come. After all, there was a lot of love and teamwork thrown into it.

As far as materials, we spent just under $200.00 - which in the grand scheme of things is pretty damn cheap when you compare it to an average of $600.00+ for other store bought maple hairpin leg dining tables. Our plan is to build a matching bench in the coming months, and will certainly update this post with our progress. Without further adieu, the after: