Rustic Farm Table

I have always wanted a farm table.

I wanted it to look old, distressed, and worn-down. I wanted it to be sturdy and heavy. 

And I finally got it!

A few years ago my parents torn down their barn. It was over 100 years old, and sadly it was starting to show its age. For the safety of everyone in the family, it had to be "put down". The good news of all this is? I now had, literally, tonnes of old barn wood at my fingertips! I kinda wanted to make my whole home look like an old barn! Like, do some paneling on the walls, build some shelves, hang a massive old barn door...  My husband said "no" to those ideas, but did agree to help me build a dining table.

My very own rustic farm table built out of old barn wood!

We looked at many different plans. Searched online and Pinterest. Browsed through Restoration Hardware and Urban Barn. 

We came up with our own plan, pulling together all our (my!) favorite features. 

We were going to build a heavy sturdy table, with chunky legs, and a simple stringer. The top would be thick, made of wide planks. I wanted to stain the top dark and white-wash the bottom. The final dimensions are 36" wide by 74" long, and 32.5" high.

And so we began!

We sorted through piles of wood to find pieces long and wide enough, and in good shape. I was able to be picky (there was lots to choose from) and found wood without rot, minimal warping, and just enough raw edges. 

First we cut the legs. Normal table height is about 30 - 32 inches. I have a bit of a tall family, big people with long legs, so we cut our table legs at 32.5 inches. 

Then decide how wide you want the legs to be apart. Ours are 24 inches apart at each end. You will need the 4 leg posts and 2 spacers cut at this time. 

The wood looked great on the inside. I was really pleased at its condition for being 100 + years old!

This is the next step, to make it look like this:

I thought it would be easier if I show you this first, then you have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about, and what we are working towards. 

Taking the 4 posts, we drilled into each one so that we could insert the spacer to create the end frame of the table. I measured it to be 6 inches off the floor, and in the middle of the post.  My husband drilled 2 circles in each leg (you can see the center marks) and then we used a chisel to clean up the rest. Trying to make it into a rectangular hole. 

I don't have a picture of it (sorry, we were in the groove and totally forgot to keep taking pictures!) but we made a "peg" end on the spacer to fit into the chiseled out hole. Just cut down the edges of the spacer so the end will fit nice and tight into the space. Then, put the "peg" into the "hole". 

Secure this connection with a long screw. I mean LONG! The screws we used were 6 inches long! We first drilled some pilot holes to prevent the wood from splitting on us, and so we could sink them in, out of sight. 

So here it is. The legs are 24 inches apart with the spacer. 

Now we had the 2 ends of the table base!

Select the piece of wood for the stringer. This will be the long piece that holds the two ends of the table base together. And somewhere to rest your feet on!

Cut it to the desired length. Ours is cut at 36 inches. 

We drilled some pilot holes in the end spacers, and some countersink holes too. This is where we attached the stringer.

To make these holes in the correct place, we marked center on the spacer and drilled holes 2 inches either side of center. Pre-drill some pilot holes in the stringer too. Again, mark center and drill 2 inches each side of center. 

These are the holes in the spacer:

And here is where we are about to drill in the stringer. See the line at center? And those + marks are measured 2 inches off center, in the middle of the height of the board. Drill through the + marks. 

Now attach the stringer to the spacer using those long screws again. 

Repeat for the other side. And the base is nearly complete! 

Using NEW wood we created a top frame. This holds the legs in place, making sure it won't twist on you. We used new wood in this step so we could be sure it was straight and square. Even though we picked through piles of boards and found some really great pieces, they were ALL a bit weathered and warped. A bit of new wood was needed to hold it all in square secure position. 

Staring to look a bit like a real table, eh?

To build the table top... unfortunately no pictures of this either! You would think I am new to this blogging thing or something....sorry!

It is pretty easy though. Start by gathering together the planks that you want to use as the table top. Lay them out together and see how you like the width. I ended up using 4 planks 5.5" wide and 2 planks 7" wide. This makes my table 36 inches wide. 

Cut them all to your desired table top length. Mine are all cut at 74 inches. 

Now, just secure them together by screwing a narrow piece of wood into each plank. We used 1.5 inch screws and put 2 into each plank. You can see how we made the tabletop in this photo:

I know some of these tabletop planks look new in the photo. They are not, they just look like it on the bottom here! We did have to run a few of the super rough, thick, planks through a thickness planer to get them all to be the same thickness. I wanted a rustic looking tabletop, but I still wanted it to be functional for meal time!

We decided not to attach the tabletop to the base. Both pieces are super heavy. The tabletop just sits inside the base frame. It does not move! If you wanted, you could easily screw the two pieces together, just be sure to have at least 6 people on standby anytime you want to move the table. It really is HEAVY!

Now that the building of the frame and tabletop was complete, I began the finishing work. 

Lots and lots of sanding! My whole garage was filled with sawdust!

Now here is how it looked after much sanding and the addition of a frame "facing" to hide the new wood around the top.

And the top, now all sanded smooth:

I wanted to white-wash the base. I used basic white paint (sample sized pot from Home Dept) and put some in a small container. It was water based paint, so I added some water to it and thinned it down. This was my "white-wash" for the base. The legs, spacers, stringer, and frame got two coat of this. 

Before:

Put on a thin coat of my homemade whitewash paint:

Rub it around a bit and remove any excess with a cloth:

Here it looks like rustic old wood, but just a bit whiter!

I repeated this process again, putting on a second coat. 

Thin coat of white-wash on, rubbing it off, leaving behind  a "whiter" wood look. 

Same thing for the frame, before:

After:

Now here it is all white-washed:

I love it! I like that the subtle wood grain is still visible through the white-wash!

I stained the top using a single coat of Minwax dark walnut stain.

 Just paint a thin layer on, and then wipe it off. 

Here you can see the difference just one coat made:

To seal the tabletop, I used Minwax® Paste Finishing Wax. Just rub it in to the wood to create a moisture barrier and a layer of protection, it also added a bit of lustre. I put 2 coats of wax on, waiting 24 hours between coats. 

Here is the finished, waxed tabletop:

And finally.... My new Rustic Farm Table!

~Jess