Quarter-sawn white oak, drop leaf dining table

This project is a 54” drop-leaf table I built for my mother’s kitchen and presented to her this past christmas. The design is loosely based upon a table that she saw and liked at the pottery barn. I couldn’t let her waste her money on their furniture, so I decided that I would build something similar in a wood that matched some of the other pieces in her kitchen. The frame and table top are all solid quartersawn white oak. The shelves supporting and covering the basket are mdf panels with qs white oak veneer. I decided to use slip tenon jointery since I had fairly some involved glue-ups on the frame. I built this project for table class that I was taking a local community college, so I was fortunate to have access to a horizontal mortiser. Though time-consuming, it made the 48 slot mortises required in the 4 legs and each frame member much easier and quicker to accomplish.

The finish is a qs oak finish that I came across on fine woodworking… ...please pardon my messy basement in the pictures… ...I took these photos when I had completed my build, but had to dismantle most of the table in order to travel the 600 miles to my mom’s house. Once I had it set up in my mom’s kitchen, I forgot to take a few photos of it.

This project was lots of fun and the largest project that I have tackled yet… ...I experimented with a type of jointery that I had not yet tried and am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. The best part in all of it was thought was the look on my mother’s face when she saw it put together for the first time.

Thanks for looking, and feel free to comment and/or question.

-- -Jay Hartman - Morrisville, PA