It's Supper Time!

Although it has been a while for you, literally, three hours after Tyler and I brought the table base upstairs from being spray painted, we finished the job! We were sooooo close, so we figured, "Why not?!?!" And now, I get to share it with you! I'm soo excited!!

Being two smart cookies, Tyler and I had flipped the table top upside-down onto our "dining room" floor before we'd gone downstairs to bring up the freshly painted base. When the base arrived upstairs, we placed it like so...

Please ignore my unattractive face.

Our first goal was to situate the base so that it stood evenly between the sides and ends of the table. More importantly, however, we wanted the legs of the table to be as straight as possible. Therefore, before making any placement decisions, we used a level to ensure the legs stood perpendicularly to the table.

Tyler with our best friend, Mr. Level.

Much to our chagrin, we realized, when working with pipes, it is near impossible to ensure a perfect 90 angle between the table and the pipe. We just had to accept that we'd have to get it as close as possible. Once the legs were adjusted to our liking, we began by eyeballing the placement and setting the legs down where we thought they should go. We followed up with a ruler so that our placement was more precise. Tyler is the king of precision, and went around the table numerous times checking....

Folks, that is sheer determination right there. Look at his face!

Once all four legs had been Tyler tested and approved, Tyler drilled SHORT holes where each of the screws would go in each flange (flat metal piece at the top and base of each leg).

Here we gooooooooo!!!

Once all of the short drill holes had been made, we removed the base so that we could prep to make real, appropriate-length pilot holes. First, we had to clean up the short holes, which looked like this:

Then, we sanded them down and wiped away any wood shaving from the area. Now, we were ready to create the pilot holes. This was probably the trickiest part of the whole attachment process. The drill bit was much longer than the actual thickness of our tabletop. Therefore, if we created pilot holes by drilling straight into wood, we would end up creating sixteen holes in our tabletop, which is not the look we were going for! Instead, we wanted to create pilot holes that ran about 3/4" into our 1.25" top. This would create the perfect hole for the 1" wood screws that we had bought. The first quarter-inch of the screws would sit atop the flange and the remaining three-quarters would grab onto the tabletop, making for a secure connection. Consequently, we had to come up  with a solution that would ensure the drill did not pass through the entire thickness of the wood. After a brief brainstorming session, we ended up using a piece of scrap wood, about an inch thick, to make up for the discrepancy between the length of the drill bit and the thickness of the table top.

The extra layer of wood would allow Tyler to push the drill bit all the way down, but the drill would only end up penetrating the tabletop to where we wanted it. With a solution a hand, Tyler got to drilling.

Sixteen pilot holes later, I stepped in with the vacuum to clean up all of the wood shavings that now littered the table and our floor.

Once, this was done, we were ready for the LAST step - drilling the screws into place. Hah! It already happened and I'm getting excited just thinking about it again. We decided to drill two screws into each flange first to make certain all of the legs were attached properly before securing any of them fully. 

As Tyler drilled a screw into place, I put my weight on top of the legs at the appropriate end. We did this to ensure that we wouldn't shift the placement of the base as we secured the screws. Then, Tyler went back around on his own drilling the final two screws into each flange.

Fortunately, all that I described above went smoothly. Our solution to the small drilling crisis worked out, and all of the screws easily fit into the pilot holes we'd created for them. Therefore, when Tyler completed his second go-around with screws, we were done! AHHHHHHHHHHHH! WOOOOOO!! Celebration-party dance time! We were so excited and proud of ourselves, and I'm very happy to finally share with you our brand-spankin-new DIYed dining room table. We hope you come to eat with us soon!

Isn't she pretty?!

P.S. Tyler was super cute, and surprised me that night by not only making dinner, but setting the table so we could eat there together for the first time. What a great boyfriend. =)

P.P.S. In case you're interested, our dining room chairs are "Tobias chairs" from Ikea. They are made from plastic and chrome-plated steel, and are surprisingly comfortable. The seats are sold in clear or gray. We went with the gray, and love how they add to the industrial vibe of our apartment.