Farmhouse Pedestal Base
While the round table top presented its own set of challenges (mainly, don’t mess it up - there are no do-overs), the base has more complexity, though the cuts may be more straightforward. As with most of my projects, the first step is to sketch out a plan, and for that we need math.
The nice part about the farmhouse style is that most, if not all, the cuts will be 90 or 45 degrees and that means you’ve got another friend working on the project with you: Pythagoras.
The cardinal dimension that I based every subsequent cut off of was the height of the table. Standard tables sit at 30” high, therefore you can stack up the known heights of your wood and determine how tall your center post should be to get you to that magic 30” height. Fore example, I knew that center post would sit on a cross that was 1.5” thick, plus the four feet (also 1.5”) and a cross at the top that was 0.75” thick and the table top itself (also 1.5”). That meant the center post needed to be: 30-1.5-1.5-0.75-1.5= 24.75” in order for the final resulting table to be 30” total height.
Once the center post height is locked in, time to calculate the dimensions of the right triangle created by the support braces that sit at 45 degree angles. I determined that the vertical distance each brace reaches should be 11.5” so that there is a small space of 1.75” separating where the top and bottom braces meet the center post. The Pythagorean theorem then gave me the length of the outside edge of the brace (the hypotenuse of the triangle = 16.25”).
After cutting the braces with my miter saw, I then moved on to using the router for the lap joint for the cross at the base and cutting the blocks for the feet. After all of the pieces had been cut, I used a chamfer bit to edge every brace edge and the bottom cross, and also edged the feet as well to create a cohesive style for the entire piece. The chamfer helped turn the base from a simple block style to something a bit more elegant that the client was looking for.
After all the pieces were cut, edged, and sanded it was time to plan out how to attach everything to ensure the end result would be strong and any hardware hidden. For this process I ended up writing out a sequence of which pieces to attach in what order so that I wouldn’t run into any logistical issues. There is nothing worse than realizing that something you just glued is going to prevent you from gluing/attaching the next piece - plan ahead and write out the sequence so you don’t trip yourself up. The easiest areas for assembly are screwing the braces into the top and bottom crosses, but that does not address how to attach them to the center post discretely and hiding the screws.
To accomplish that part, I used a 1/2” forstner bit to embed the screws going into the center post from each brace, then filling the hole with a 1/2” oak dowel and cutting and sanding it down to be flush with the surface of the brace. I love the look of this method and I think it matches the simple refinement of the farmhouse style.
Finalizing the base assembly (it’s upside-down in this picture).