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Since we bought our home in 2014, I’ve been itching to find a suitable table for a certain empty wall in our home. After purchasing and being very disappointed with various entry tables, I took it upon myself to build my own.
Here’s part one of my DIY galvanized pipe farmhouse entry table.
Meet the wall. Our home is a raised ranch, which means as soon as you walk in the front door, there’s a half set of stairs going down and a half set of stairs going up. When you walk upstairs, this wall is the first thing you see. To the left is a hallway leading to our bedrooms, to the right is our living and dining spaces, and directly behind this wall is our kitchen.
My dream is to take out this wall, replace it with an island, and completely open up our upper level. Unfortunately, this is not something we can afford right now. Until then, this wall needed something.
I’ve spent endless hours looking for a table to fit this space. With every table I tried, there were two issues – depth and width. I found that the width of standard entry tables was too small and made the wall itself look smaller than it is. Beyond this, having a 14-16″ depth was creating an obstacle in this space. Walking through, it felt like you had to go around the table, which just didn’t work.
The table featured above was my favourite option. I purchased it on Amazon for $55 CAD (US Link | Canadian Link). The price goes super low, so add it to a wishlist and wait! Baskets were found at Marshalls. As much as I loved the clean aesthetic of the table, it simply came out too far and was too bulky.
That was the final straw for me. There was no affordable table that would perfectly fit this space. I would have to build one myself, so that’s what I did.
Pipe Frame
There are plans online, but for us it was easier to measure our own space and figure it out from there. That way, the table would be truly custom.
All of the pipe, with the exception of the flanges, was purchased at Lowe’s. The flanges were an awesome amazon find (half the price of in store).
For our table frame, we used the following:
- 8 x 1/2″ flanges
- 1 x 48″ x 1/2″ pipe
- 4 x 24″ x 1/2″ pipe
- 4 x 6″ x 1/2″ pipe
- 4 x 1″ x 1/2″ pipe
- 6 x 1/2″ tees
Building the frame was a guess-and-check situation. Because the pipes don’t completely screw into the fittings, you have to account for extra measurements hidden in the fittings, especially the tees.
I got lucky on the first try with selecting 24″ + 6″ pieces to make up the legs, but the pieces between the tees (making up the table depth) was a bit of an ordeal. It took me three times to realize I needed to go as small as possible (down to 1″ pieces) to make the table the way I wanted.
The best part about using pipe is that you can easily unscrew and change pieces as you go.
Wooden Tabletop
The tabletop was a bit more complicated. Because we already had the wood (and I’m cheap), I made the decision to use 3 pieces of 2×4 instead of one solid piece of wood. I highly recommend using one piece of wood as it will save you hours of filling and sanding.
For our tabletop, we used the following
- 3 x 54″ 2×4 wood pieces
- Saw
- No More Nails
- Stainable wood filler
- Sander
After measuring and cutting, we used No More Nails and clamps to “glue” the pieces of 2×4 together forming one solid piece. Because the boards weren’t perfect, I filled all the joints with stainable wood filler. After everything was dry, I sat down and sanded it all down.
The tabletop actually turned out a lot better than I expected. It was smooth, sturdy, level, and totally worth the effort.
From there, we made sure everything looked right. At this point, you cannot secure the wooden tabletop to the frame because these pieces need to be finished separately.
Check back later this week for part 2, where I discuss how we decided to finish the DIY farmhouse entry table as well as the final reveal!