When I made the 3m long dining table we knew that it would not meet all of our entertaining requirements. In September and again at Christmas we have the extended family together (that’s currently 14 adults and now 3 young children). In September it is to celebrate 6 birthdays that all occur in the space of a week.
Also, a 3m long table is rather large when there may be only another person or couple visiting for a meal.
We have space with our dining/entertaining area being around 10mx10m, so the solution was to make a smaller matching table. This table would normally stand on its own but could also put on the end of the larger table. It would be 1.2m x 1.2m, and made to match the larger table.
Design wise, it would be based on a single pedestal that was the same as those used on the larger table. The table-top would be like the larger table with aligned boards and a wide border on all sides.
Obtaining the pedestal was easy – it turned out that donor tables were readily available on Gumtree. These all had 2 pedestals and had 3 legs on each – but easily came apart and had enough parts to make single pedestal base.
The table-top was a harder find, but I obtained a 1.5m square table (& 8 chairs!) or free on Facebook Marketplace. I then carefully removed the boards making up the border on 2 sides and cut back the centre part of the table. Then shortened all the border pieces to make a 1.2m square. Finally using a biscuit jointer, added the 2 removed border pieces back onto the rest of the table-top.
After lots of sanding I then stained it to match the larger table and finished it with a gloss varnish.
I was able to sell the 8 chairs which more than covered the cost of the pedestal – with the resulting table costing us $0.
