DIY Dining Room Table

When Nick and I first got married, we were two young broke Marines.

He was a SSgt and I was a Sgt, and on paper, we were making really good money, but our bank accounts said otherwise.

We were young, irresponsible, and immature with our paychecks.

We were both in debt, and spending way too much money on booze and partying.

So when we took the plunge to get married, we basically did what most young and broke couples do, and we headed to IKEA for all our furniture needs.

You can't beat cheaply made, easy on the pocket book, yet chic furniture that you have to put together yourself....every single piece of it....

I remember sitting on the floor of our empty San Clemente apartment while watching Nick frustratingly and painstakingly put together the cheap Swedish furniture that adorns the homes of college kids, singles, and newlyweds across America.
 Here's a preview of our first apartment in San Clemente...

 We were broke, and had IKEA furniture, but we dammit, we had a nice TV...lol.

 Cute furniture....just cheaply made and not the greatest quality.

Obviously, IKEA furniture is not made to last, nor was it our plan to keep it forever.

As we progressed with our lives and our marriage, we moved out of the San Clemente apartment, moved into our first OC town home (that we purchased), and we slowly switched out our IKEA furniture for "real" furniture.

For whatever reason, we never got rid of our dining room set.

For something that was purchased at IKEA, it was a good and sturdy set, and we never thought to get rid of it.

It wasn't until recently when the cheapness of the materials really started to show in our trusty old dining room table, and I started shopping around for a new one.

I fell in LOVE with this french beam table from Restoration Hardware.

Unfortunately, the $3000 price tag deterred me from it...yep....THREE GRAND!

I continued my search, but for some reason, I kept being drawn to this Restoration Hardware table.

I HAD to have it.

After scouring Pinterest and Google, I found a DIY website ran by a lady named Ana White, and found a set of plans to build my own french beam table!

I showed them to Nick (my handyman), and he was confident that he could build it for me.

So on Sunday, we headed to Lowe's to buy our materials.

 We spent 360 dollars total to build the entire table (with the 10% military discout).

We only spent about 70 dollars on wood (we bought good wood!), another 20 on screws, and 15 or so bucks on the stain and polyurethane protectant.

Most of the cost went to the purchase of a new sander, and a Kreg Jig (the most important tool in building this table!

We started building this table at around 2 in the afternoon and finished at midnight.

Ten non stop hours of labor (with the exception of 15 minutes to eat dinner).

I helped out when I could put the baby down for a few minutes here and there.

It wasn't until after the baby went to bed at 7 that I really got in there to help sand and stain the table.

Nick did the majority of the "heavy lifting".

The finished product! 

Well, the table top hadn't been attached yet, hence the reason why it looks off centered.

It comfortably seats 8 people, and our next project is building a bench for one side of it.

I ordered chairs to go with it already.

I opted to go with white chairs, because I didn't even want to attempt to go around trying to find chairs with the exact same color finish as the stain we put on it.

I'm pretty proud of it!

More so because it was something Nick and I did together, and spent a TON of time on!

Nothing like 10 hours of bonding time over wood, stain, and power tools!