Making a beautiful and sturdy garden table with your own hands

Even if furniture production is not your area, making a garden table with your own hands to gather with family and friends on warm summer evenings is a completely feasible task.

Its main advantage over a store-bought one is the undoubted savings. It is not necessary to make a table from scratch: simply by assembling store-bought parts, you will save 30-50% of the cost. If you manage to use materials left over from construction or renovation, the costs will be limited to purchasing fittings.

By using cheap, substandard boards for a country or kitchen table, you will gain advantages that are not available for mass production. Sounds dubious? But it is: the knots that cause boards to be rejected have very interesting decorative properties. If you manage to highlight them successfully, you will become the author of a completely unique designer product that is a pity to leave in the garden in the rain.

We decide on the design and construction

To choose a design, you need to decide where the product will be used: on a grass lawn under a tree, to complement a gazebo, to stand in a workshop or in a house.

The simplest garden table can be assembled in a few hours with a minimum of materials, but it will not last long. To get a product that will be truly pleasant to use, you need to carefully prepare the boards and perform all technical operations at each stage with high quality.

If you find a large stump in the forest, you can make a simple garden table out of it. All you need to do is remove the bark from the stump, make a smooth cut on top, sand it, treat it with an antiseptic and varnish it. Just nail or screw the finished furniture board to the stump “leg” – and you’re done.

Tabletops made of planks fastened at the bottom with crossbars look good. If you prefer a glued tabletop, you can make it yourself, but it will require a lot of effort.

It is difficult for a novice craftsman to securely fasten the legs, so try to choose a design, correctly assessing your skills and taking into account the labor and time costs. The easiest to make are cross-shaped and L-shaped legs. To attach straight legs, you need to carefully connect the parts.

One of the most comfortable options for the garden is a collapsible table with benches, which can be installed in a gazebo or on a veranda. It is not difficult to make, the main thing is to choose high-quality materials and properly prepare them for work.

How to choose a tree?

Many types of wood are suitable for a garden or kitchen table, both soft (pine, spruce, cedar, fir) and hard (oak, birch, ash, walnut, maple, apple, pear, acacia, etc.). The exception is very soft types of wood (poplar, alder, aspen, willow).

One of the main parameters of the suitability of wood for furniture production is resistance to decay: the species listed above meet this requirement.

If you do not plan to do furniture work on a regular basis or are just starting to practice, give preference to the most common types of wood - pine and birch.

Different types of wood can be used for the tabletop, frame and legs. Dowels will be needed during assembly: they are usually made of acacia or boxwood. Birch wood has an inexpressive pattern and can warp significantly due to spilled liquid – it is better not to use it as a tabletop material, but due to the hardness of this wood, you can make legs from it.

The tabletop is best made of oak or pine. If you know how to brush wood, the surface of the kitchen table can become a real work of art. Soft types of wood can be brushed: the wood is burned with a gas burner, and the soft fibers are removed with an iron brush. It is better to do the work in the yard because of the large amount of dust. If you managed to burn the wood evenly, the result will please you. The brush can be tinted with stains, stains, artistic acrylic paint diluted with water. Of course, brushing the wood is not necessary: ​​this is only a finishing option.

Selection of paints and varnishes and glue

Before installation, the boards must be protected from rotting. The wood must be impregnated with water-polymer emulsion (WPE): the treatment is carried out twice with an interval of 3-5 days. This is enough for the product to last a long time.

Some models will require glue. Along with special wood glues (BF-2, etc.), you can use construction PVA: apply it to both surfaces to be glued, dry until "tack-free", then connect the parts and keep under pressure for up to three days.

The choice of paints and varnishes is determined by where the product is planned to be used: in the yard or indoors. For a garden table, which is inevitably exposed to precipitation, alkyd, alkyd-urethane, nitrocellulose varnishes and oil paints are suitable. For a kitchen table, as well as for any furniture that is constantly indoors, it is better to use acrylic paints and varnishes: they are more environmentally friendly, do not have a strong smell. Varnishes marked with the "blue angel" sign are recommended for children's furniture and toys.

If you decide to cover the wood with stain, paint or just tinted varnish, this should be done before assembly. It is necessary to take into account the compatibility of materials. The varnish is tinted with a paint of a suitable composition: if the varnish is alkyd, the paint should be oil, if you use acrylic varnish - it can only be tinted with acrylic paint. First, a small amount of varnish is thoroughly mixed in a separate container with paint, and then the resulting mixture is added to a larger volume of varnish.

What tools are needed

To work you will need:

• hacksaw,
• circular saw or jigsaw;
• drill;
• screwdriver;
• hammer (if you decide to use nails).

This list includes only the most necessary tools, but to make the work more comfortable and the finished product look aesthetically pleasing, it is advisable to buy or rent a swivel miter box, an eccentric sander and a milling machine.

The swivel miter box allows you to make cuts at exactly the right angle. The eccentric sander will allow you to prepare the parts simply, quickly and efficiently: you will sand the boards in an hour, instead of doing it all day by hand with sandpaper. For high-quality processing of the ends, a belt sander will come in handy, and a milling machine allows you to select wood for the necessary grooves and process the edges.

DIY Pallet Table

A spectacular table in a rustic style can be constructed from pallets (wooden pallets). If you are a lucky owner of such a container, especially a two-layer pallet, just disassemble it: there is no problem in purchasing the boards!

Do you think that buying new boards is always better? You probably haven't worked with wood before: raw wood cannot be used (the product will deform after a few months), and dry boards are much more expensive. To dry boards made of raw wood, they are stacked in a well-ventilated room: this necessary process will delay your project by 4-6 months! A good option for a kitchen table can be the already mentioned rejected boards, also dry.

Let's get back to the pallets: they are disassembled. Now you have at your disposal strong boards with different patterns and colors, possibly from different tree species. These features should not be considered disadvantages: they will add zest to the product: you just need to create an interesting composition from them, alternating boards of a similar shade.

The side pieces of the pallet will make a great frame, and the remaining planks will be used to build the countertop.

To make the legs, you will need a beam at least 5 cm thick. All the parts must be prepared: sand strictly along the grain with coarse sandpaper (No. 120-150), then finer grain (No. 400-600), carefully removing dust.

Some boards can be painted with acrylic or oil paint. Loft style fans can use stencils in the form of numbers or simple graphic symbols. Boards with a beautiful natural pattern are “stained” or simply varnished. After staining or the first layer of acrylic varnish, the soft fibers rise; they need to be sanded with medium-grain sandpaper and a new layer of varnish is applied.

If a non-water-based varnish is used, it is enough to apply 2-3 layers, and if acrylic, the number of layers can reach ten.

After varnishing the parts, you can proceed to installation, which consists of several stages.

We fasten the tabletop boards with strips, which we place at the joints of the boards. Using a drill, screwdriver and screws, we fasten the boards to the strips (we use two screws at the joints, one on solid boards). Using a drill is necessary so that the wood does not crack when screwing in the screws. We assemble the frame from the prepared pallet sidewalls. Using a drill of a suitable diameter for the screws, we drill holes at the joints. We coat the joints with glue and fix them with screws. We install the legs: simply screw the boards to the frame, screwing in the screws diagonally. To strengthen the structure, we make crossbars at the bottom in a similar way.

Wooden table with glued top

For a glued tabletop, you need to select boards of the same width. If the table is intended for a workshop and its appearance is not of great importance, you can use old floorboards: they already have grooves. To make grooves yourself, you will need a milling machine.

To assemble the tabletop, you need a flat surface. Simply coat the sides with glue, join the boards without gaps and tighten the resulting structure with clamps. Depending on the glue used, the tabletop should dry for 1 to 3 days. If everything is done correctly, you will get a tabletop with an absolutely flat surface without cracks. It remains to work on the ends - first trim with a jigsaw, and then sand. If you do not have a belt sander, this must be done manually - first with coarse sandpaper, then with medium grain.

If you don't want to mess around with glue and clamps, you can use a ready-made furniture board from a hardware store. Then the tabletop only needs to be covered with transparent or tinted varnish.

For a good result, you need to apply 5-7 (for acrylic varnish up to 10) layers. After every third layer, the work surface of the tabletop should be sanded with fine-grained sandpaper, carefully removing dust with a damp cloth. At the varnishing stage, it is important not to rush: each layer of varnish should dry well.

All that remains is to make the legs of the garden or kitchen table: let's opt for the option with L-shaped legs. You will need boards at least 22-25 mm thick.

L-shaped legs consist of two parts connected at a 90-degree angle. It is necessary to make a cut on the boards to be connected, coat the joint with wood glue, and then install self-tapping screws.

When the glue dries, we cover the legs with varnish and after drying, simply attach them to the table top with screws.

Table with straight legs

To make straight legs, it is enough to saw a thick beam into pieces of the same length. There are several options for connecting such legs to the tabletop.

To ensure that straight legs are installed securely, you can use dowel joints at home. You can make them yourself from acacia wood or buy ready-made ones. To assemble dowel joints, you need quick-drying wood glue (BF-2).

Table with X-shaped legs

X-shaped legs are made from beams or boards at least 50 mm thick.

Sequence of work.

1. We attach two strips on each side to the inner side of the tabletop using self-tapping screws.
2. To make the table look good, the edges of the planks must first be cut at an angle of 52 .
3. We attach the paired planks so that the legs fit, making 2-3 mm overlaps on each side.
4. Place the boards on a flat surface, crossing them at the desired angle. Measure the distance between the ends of the boards: it should correspond to the width of the table.
5. We outline the intersection point with chalk: here it is necessary to select half the thickness of the boards so that after assembly they lie in the same plane.
6. We coat the recesses with glue and place the parts under the press for 1-3 days. For greater reliability, the connection can be reinforced with self-tapping screws.
7. We varnish the legs.
8. All that remains is to attach them to the tabletop, placing them in the grooves formed by the slats – and the table for your do-it-yourself dacha is ready.

Table with benches

The best solution for a gazebo is a dining table with benches attached to it. It is better to make such a structure collapsible so that it can be put indoors for the winter.

The table will require thick boards (from 32 mm), which need to be sawn into pieces according to the drawing. In this version, two benches are attached to the table. When all the parts are cut, they need to be sanded, paying special attention to the ends. Each board is separately varnished.

To connect the parts of the structure, we will prepare studs (length 160 mm), nuts and washers - 24 pcs. For the remaining connections, we use self-tapping screws or nails of suitable length. Using a drill, it is necessary to prepare all the holes for the fasteners.

We assemble the tabletop and the upper parts of the benches according to the drawing. We cut the crossbars along the edges, the angle should be 45. This is conveniently done using a swivel miter box.

We make and fasten all the legs with screws. We fasten the parts cut at an angle.

We tighten the product with studs and bolts. The holes for the studs must be pre-drilled with a drill. When installing the stud, you need to put washers on both sides and tighten the nuts using a wrench.

We attach the seat boards with gaps of 5 mm. When the seats are connected to the sawn supports, we attach them to the assembled base with 160 cm boards: you will need 4 boards.

We install the remaining studs and enjoy the result.

VIDEO: DIY Wooden Table for a Gazebo

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