Deck Table

Thursday and Friday I worked on making a table for our deck.  I'm so happy it's done.  It's so much nicer than using the old plastic table we had.   We don't use the deck too often to eat dinner on just because it's hot in the full sun with no shade.  Now all we need to get is a tilting umbrella....one of these days! :)

I started with some 4x4 posts to make 4 legs.  The table top is 2x8 pine boards.  I bought 5 that were 8 foot long.  I only lightly sanded them I didn't plane them down or join the edges this time like I did with my dining room table.  I also didn't glue & pocket screw them together.  This time I just used 3 pieces of scrap wood to screw them all together.

Before putting the table together I stained all the parts with Minwax dark walnut stain then put on 2 coats of Helmsman exterior poly.

The aprons were 2x4s that I ripped down to about 3" and then planed them down so they weren't as rough.  I used pocket screws on them.  The short ends are 27" and the long ends were 87 1/2 inches.  I held the 4x4s in about an inch from the edge of the table top then held the aprons in 2 inches from the edge.  I pocket screwed the apron to the table top then pocket screwed the apron ends to the legs.

Here's the table on the deck.