Reply by Al_in_OH

The one element I see missing in your first drawing it lateral stability. This can be solved either with cross bracing or just adding plywood sheathing to the back and ends. Shelves underneath also makes great storage; which I never seem to have enough of.

- LesB

I built mine like in the first picture and LesB is correct. I have lateral stability issues. Not too big of a deal until I am performing a task that requires a lot of force in one direction, hand planing a board as an example. The whole table rocks sideways. I also recently added casters and when I try to push the table around (it’s fairly heavy) there is a lot of lateral movement. I haven’t put anything in place to correct this, but thought about plywood sheathing as this would give me a place to hang some more tools. I also added a shelf to the bottom.