Introduction: Dining Table for 16 for $60 in 2 Hours

By PandaPix
About: I'm an Electrical Engineer by training and profession. I enjoy working on complex problems and processes, and I especially like finding ways to do complex tasks more efficiently. My current interests are wo…

This Instructable provides an overview of how I made a large top for our existing dining room table so that we can seat an extra 4-6 people around the table.

We are having a large number of family for Thanksgiving, and we would like to be able to seat everyone around the dining table. Our current table will seat around 10, but we are expecting about 16 people.

We decided to make a temporary table top to put on top of our existing table using nice plywood ($30/sheet) obtained from Home Depot. I had Home Depot cut one of the sheets in half, and then had them cut 20 inches off of the second sheet.

I then used a jigsaw to cut 6" radius corners on each of the outer edges.

I routed a 1/4" radius around the edges of the entire table top using a portable router.

I used a Kreg pocket screw jig to drill pocket screw holes in the outer edges of the 20" piece, and then carefully aligned the 20" section between the two large sections and attached the center section to the outer sections with pocket screws. I then carefully positioned the assembled top so that it was centered on the table and then attached a 2-1/2" width section of plywood underneath the top on each side using pocket hole screws. This gives added stiffness to the top and prevents the top from being accidentally moved from side to side.

It took about 2-3 hours to complete the project.

We considered finishing the top - but we don't have enough time, so we are just going to cover it with a tablecloth.

The top can be easily disassembled after Thanksgiving, and then reassembled when needed in the future.

This same concept can be used for almost any size base or top.