Holiday Tables

I have been having my extended family over to my house for thanksgiving for a number of years now. The one problem I have is that I don't have enough table space for thirty-plus people. I thought about getting the plastic folding tables that everyone uses, but I decided I could make something that looked better for less money. My goal was to have something that looked nice, would hold up to reasonable abuse, but was cheap. This will be my third year of using these tables and they still look and work as good as when I made them.

The tables are made from 1" x 3" wood for the frame and very thin plywood for the surface and sides. The legs are made from PVC. Each table ended up costing me about $25 when I made them.

I first made a frame for the table out of the wood and screws, much as you would make a frame for a wall of a house. I spaced the wood about a foot apart so that it would have some strength. I then cut the plywood to fit on top of this table and cut strips of ply-wood to fit around the edges. I beveled all the edges so I would get a nice, neat look. I nailed all these in place and also used some wood glue to make sure everything would stay. I added small reinforcing pieces on the corners to form triangles; in these triangle pieces I put PVC pipe couplings meant to connect two pipes together. I screwed these PVC pieces into place so the legs would fit into the coupling. I found that this worked but the legs were a bit wobbly. To make the table more secure I filled around the coupling with hydraulic cement and this made the legs solid.

The legs are just short sections of PVC pipe that I painted black but can remove since they just slide into the couplings. I put a few coats of polyurethane on the surface and thats it. The tables are strong enough for me to sit on and they look like they are made of much better materials then they are. I am not sure if they will last as long as the fold up tables, but they are defiantly larger and they look much nicer for less money.

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