The Steck Dining Room Table

The Steck Dining Room Table (a trade among friends)
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I’m good friend with my neighbors (you guessed it, the Stecks)... and they really wanted a new dining room table. Coincidentally, I really wanted a quilt for my 1 year old daughter … So, we came up with an idea… I’ll build them a dining room table, and they’ll make a quilt for my daughter out of her old baby clothes (Mrs Steck is a VERY talented quilter)... So a trade was made!

I constructed this table out of reclaimed antique pallet wood. It’s a mix of white oak, red oak, and black locust with an Ipe inlay. The old nail holes, saw marks, worm holes, and general rustic character of the wood are what really make me love the look of this table. I intentionally tried to contrast the rustic interior of the table by using a very clean and polished inlay and oak border. I think if the entire table was “rustic”, it might lose something. All the boards are glued and doweled in both directions …

The border was TOUGH and a great learning experience for me. So a solid piece of wood this large is going to have significant expansion contraction issues… so I had to make sure that the border allowed for that, otherwise it would likely crack and perhaps pull away from the table. So on the ends of the table the border has the grain going in the same direction as the table, so that is glued on firmly.. it’s the side borders that are going perpendicular to the grain of the table interior… they are glued by the corners (around 6 inches) and then attached with floating tenons and then screws from the underside with holes that have a bit of wiggle room… so the border can’t come off and stays tight to the table, but allows for the 1/4 to 1/2 ” expansion contraction that I have seen on this table though the seasons. I couldn’t BELIEVE how much it moved the first year.. thank GOD I followed all the advice of more experienced woodworkers on this one!

Other than that, the legs are made of pallet wood as well, white oak… the table accepts 2 leaves and is 92 inches at full length – I used heavy duty 500lb rated ballbearing sliders to open close the table, I’m very pleased the way they came out—smooth as silk and table has absolutely no sag in it. —they were attached to long pine beams that are doweled into the front and back sash of the table (you can see the dowels in the front on picture)

All in all, it was a great project for me, learning wise and my neighbors family will enjoy dinner on this table for many years to come! (and we’ve been enjoying my daughter’s amazing quilt!)

NEW ** I added the picture of the quilt :-)