DIY Pottery Barn Inspired Dining Table

Did you see the vintage chair I made over yesterday? Well we bought it to accent this amazing table that my husband built last weekend.

You see, we build our house last year and actually moved in last April.  Shortly after moving in we decided to put in a pool which totally tore up our yard.  Between the pool and then the requisite fence, our backyard was a construction zone through the end of September.  We’ve been so excited to actually “live” in it this year so we’ve spent the winter dreaming up plans for the outdoors.

I posted about all the work grading and laying sod we did a few weeks ago, and we recently decided to turn the patio area into a dining area and move our patio lounge furniture to the pool area. The point of all that was that we started looking at outdoor dining tables and we quickly realized buying one was not going to happen.  Even the most affordable options were going to be over $500 by time we got the minimum of six chairs we’d need. So we decided to build one.  And by “we” I mean my husband Randy.

I directed Randy to the Ana White site that we used to build our headboard but he wasn’t finding his “vision” in the plans there.  He was really inspired by this Pottery Barn table (which is an indoor table) so he made his own plans up using the Simple Farmhouse Table Plans from Ana White, this farmhouse table tutorial featured on Remodelaholic, and his own design.

Update! Superstar Ana White has drawn up easy plans for this DIY dining table so you can build your own!

I have to admit I was a little nervous with him making his own design so I kindof signed out of the process.  He went to Lowes last week and spent $60 on the wood he needed. Then Friday I went grocery shopping and by time I got home he had framed it out already!

So I was a ~teensy~ bit impressed at this point.  He works a lot and doesn’t get a lot of DIY time in recent years so I guess I had forgotten that he has some pretty great DIY skills! (A case of blog-induced DIY megalomania I guess!) He finished up the table and then handed the process over to me for finishing it up.

The first thing I did was fill all the screw holes with stainable wood putty. Then I used Minwax Wood Conditioner on the entire piece.  Once that was dry I lightly sanded it and did one coat of Minwax Polyshades in Mission Oak-my favorite stain color!

Now the table just needed the finishing touch-the turnbuckle underneath like Randy’s Pottery Barn inspiration.  This proved to be a bit of a debaucle because he had wanted one large turnbuckle underneath but to do that we’d need a left hand threaded rod and apparently these are very hard to come by without special ordering it.  We did not have the patience for that so we ended up using two smaller turnbuckles with hooks on the left hand threaded side and used a regular right hand threaded rod to attach it on either side of the table frame.  See those rectangular washers on the outside of the frame? He actually cut those out of an old license plate!  Smart man! (I gush a bit over my hubby, I kinda like him!)

All of the hardware was sprayed with Hammered Brown Rustoleum Spray Paint.  If you’re going to try this make sure you get the zinc-coated hardware, the galvanzied is very difficult to spraypaint.

So there is the table.  Fantastic and under $100!  While all of this table building and vintage chair reupholstering was going on we had 5 other chairs getting their own little makeovers and I’ll show those to you soon! I’m so excited about our patio makeover!!

Have you started revamping your outdoor spaces this year? What do you think of our DIY table?