We recently inherited a set of antique dining room chairs that have been in my family for quite some time. The timing was great, as my wife and I are about to move into a larger house and needed a new dining room set. With that, we started the search for a suitable table that would work with the chairs and not break the bank.
No such luck.
Tables are expensive, and most don't seem to work with antique chairs and big armrests.
After some searching and patience, we finally found a table that could, with a little modification, fit the bill. It was from a furniture outlet store and had significant damage to one end, but at $200 was worth a shot at fixing.
Here is the table as purchased:
It must have been dropped... pretty significant damage:
The other issue (which seemed to be the case with every table we found) was the chair arm rests not clearing the table skirt. For space and comfort issues this also had to be fixed.
The plan of action: (1) shorten the table by 10" to remove the damaged end and (2) rip the long runners to accommodate the tall chairs. I started by disassembling the table, which luckily only had glue at joints indicated below. Even there the glued joints were broken apart without much damage to the wood.
I ripped each runner to trim 1.75" off the width. I don't have any picture of cutting the table top, as it took both of us to run it on the table. I set the fence at 10" and cut the damaged end off. The cut was clean and only required some quick sanding to match the factory end. I will touch it up with a light stain to mask the fresh cut.
The long runners also had the be shortened by 10". After cutting them to length, I notched the ends to work with the existing joints at the table legs.
Reassembling the table:
I used a bit more glue than the original makers did, but other than that I put it back together as it originally was (just a bit shorter).
Here's the finished project. It works with the chairs, which are ready for some reapulstering, and is finished at a quarter of the cost of a new one.
The End.
