Walnut Dining Room and Foyer #1: Project Description / First Status

I plan to use this blog to track my progress on a number of furniture pieces going in our dining/foyer area for our home that we purchased about 1 year ago. Our old home did not have a separate dining room, so we had no furniture to go in this room. I decided to build my own pieces to fill this space, as I have been doing a lot of woodworking over the past year and feel that confident (enough) that I have the skills, time, and vision to complete this. Here is a list of the pieces in the set and their status:

- Foyer mirror (Completed here)
- Wall Art (Completed) – using technique described here
- Foyer table (Under Construction)
- Dining Seating (Chair Prototype Completed, Benches in Design Phase)
- Dining Table (Design Phase)

This will be my first attempt to make a set of furniture sharing common design and construction elements. I also have a target of Thanksgiving to complete these projects so they can get some good use. As mentioned in the title, I plan to use mainly walnut in all these pieces, with maple accents.

Here are pics of the completed pieces and the Foyer Table that I plan to finish this month:

Wall Art – Walnut Plywood finished with GF Gel Topcoat / Satin

Foyer Mirror – Walnut frame and Maple corner keys finished with GF Pre-Cat Urethane

Chair Prototype – Walnut finished with GF Pre-Cat Urethane

Foyer Table – Walnut frame with Maple top and bottom shelf. The maple pieces are bookmatched from a single 8/4 hard maple piece that was about 9 inches wide by 8 feet long. Final thickness will be about 7/8” for both. I am using loose tenon for this entire piece, including bookmatch glue-up and the bottom shelf to frame attachment:

Here are the next steps I need to do:

1) Fill in some unexpected knots on the Foyer Table top that showed up when I did the resaw. I will be using System Three epoxy with brown pigment. This is the first time I am using epoxy for this.
2) Cut curves on the ends of the table top so it have a simlar feel as the bottom shelf
3) Glue walnut endcaps on the table top
4) Groove the apron pieces to take z-clips that will hold on table top
5) Sand, glue, spray finish

Tips and comments are welcome!