My dining room table is almost finished!

As a kid, I learned about woodworking from my parents, and I loved it! I always thought it was a fun and creative way to be able to spend my time.

Within the last several years, I've been trying to incorporate woodworking back into my life. Over a year ago, I started on my latest project -a dining room table. While surfing online one day, I found this great solid cherry arts and crafts style table... but it was sooooo expensive! So, I decided to try and build it myself. (This picture is from the furniture maker website.)

So, the first thing I did was to sit down and create a set of plans. I cleared out my living room, and marked out how much room 6 chairs would take out, and from that I determined what the length, width, and heighth of the table should be. Then, I started working out the dimensions of the table top, legs, and supporting pieces... Even though I had the picture to use as a reference point, this was definitely the hardest part, since I didn't want anything to look to heavy, or worse, too light. This is a CAD screenshot of the plans, as they were being developed.

Now, the table is basically done. I still need to apply finish to the legs and supporting pieces (which I'll do when it's a little warmer in my garage), but otherwise I'm about done! Here are some pics:

View of the underside:

This table was undoubtedly the toughest project regarding joints I've tackled... The dovetails on the horizontal top support were pretty straightforward, but insetting the lower curved piece into the leg turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I ended up with some gaps to fill (don't look too close!), but now I'm ready for next time...

I wish I had taken pictures as I built the table, but unfortunately I didn't... I had a lot of fun on this, and am a little bummed it's over. But now I need to figure out some matching chairs. I've found some chairs online that I love, but no big surprise, they're way more than I'm willing to pay! The chair issue is to be continued...