This post has been SO long in the works, if you follow me on social media you might have seen us make our dining table out of beautiful oak sleepers. We spent days fixing, sanding and staining and it really was a thing of beauty. However, after just a few weeks of our beautiful DIY dining table living in our conservatory which, incidentally is hotter than the face of the sun. The whole thing warped and split. Cue tears. We turned it upside down, weighted it down with breeze blocks and used a few of our neighbours heavy duty clamps thinking that if we left it for a few weeks in the sun, it might fully dry out and maintain its shape. As you can guess… that didn’t work. We finally had to admit defeat when our dinner was sliding off down to the middle of the table and trying to work at it with my laptop just made me feel a bit seasick. After much deliberation (it would have been so much easier and cheaper to just buy a table at this point but no… we’re nothing if not perseverant! Or, is that stubborn?) we decided to buy some more wood and give it one more go.

This time we decided to go with the cheaper option of reclaimed scaffold boards. Our reasoning? Well, they’ve been out in all weather, dried out multiple times over so shouldn’t mind the heat *touches wood*. Also, if it does all go tits up again, we haven’t wasted hundreds of pounds on dry, treated oak.

If you do decide to make your table out of oak, make absolutely sure that you get fully dried, treated oak. (That’s what we thought we had but clearly, we were wrong!) Then I would recommend dowelling the planks together and then using pocket screws for additional sturdiness. Then you should create some sort of brace using angle iron or something of similar strength. Finally, onto the legs, depending on how big the table is, you’ll need something pretty heavy duty. We used three-pronged steel hairpin legs which are supposed to be able to take over 200kg but they weren’t quite enough for our, super long table.

If you decide to go down our second route of reclaimed scaffold boards then you can afford to do a bit less in the way of fixing them together as they’re much, much lighter. We created a frame with a couple of cross braces and we also used right angle brackets for a bit of added strength.

DIY DINING TABLE – THE FINISHED PRODUCT

It’s only been finished and up for a few days but so far so good… Will report back if anything changes!!

It really has transformed the room though, the conservatory itself is super old and probably needs to be pulled down and rebuilt sooner rather than later but at the moment it’s a room that we love spending time in. When it’s not 500 degrees, of course.

I’m so excited to finally get to use our lush dining chairs from Out & Out Original, they’ve been sat looking a bit lost in there for weeks now so I’m loving being able to style them up and actually sit on them to eat our dinner. It really is the simple things, guys! Also, whilst getting the link for our chairs I found these and I think I actually prefer them to ours!! They’re also on sale right now! Gahh, hate it when that happens!

We still need to get a few finishing touches for this room, there’s a massive print I have my eye on… Also maybe some more plants, but much like the rest of the house, it’s getting there – slowly.

Side note but this candle from Le Labo, pictured above, is pretty much the most delicious smelling thing, ever, it also burns so well! Just in case you feel like treating yourself and adding a bit of hygge into your home…

Anyone else toying with the idea of making things for your home? DIY dining table and beyond… Would love to see the results? Maybe tag me on Insta so that I can drool and get interior envy!