Eames to my own

About two years ago I salvaged a Herman Miller Eames molded plywood coffee table from a dumpster behind my old apartment.

Don't get too excited, though--the previous owners had sat on it, breaking the tabletop. Repeatedly.

Fortunately, my dad had a supply of beautiful and incredibly old maple salvaged from a barn of a family friend.

Check out the handmade dowels:

After cutting the boards to size (staggered so as to not waste much wood), we planed the boards to even them out and to take years of dirt, dust, and paint off. Finally, we edged them so we could glue them together tightly.

We arranged the boards to our liking, numbered each board, and marked the places where a biscuit would go. With a biscuit cutter we made horizontal notches in the side precisely where we marked and then acted quickly to brush glue along each edge, especially in the notches where the biscuits sit. Finally, we used long pipe clamps to hold the boards together tightly while the glue dried.

Our finished product looked like uneven Jenga pieces held together, but it was possible to see where this might lead.

After tracing the tabletop onto our boards, we found the center and marked it with a pencil. We then set up a fairly complicated rig based on an episode of This Old House on PBS. Essentially, we clamped a support board with a hole bored in it for a dowel exactly the diameter of our desired table away from the band saw. Then we bored a hole in the center of the glued boards, so that we could cut a circle by spinning it on the dowel. It sounds easier than it was, trust me.

But in the end, it worked!

Our next step was choosing a stain to match the legs as closely as possible. We used a scrap piece of maple and had my mom and uncle weigh in.

After much deliberation, we chose light cherry. Here it is with stain and a coat or two of finish:

The sanding/varnishing/staining process was slowed down by a poor brush and learning how closely the table needed to be sanded so that the stain didn't highlight any imperfections, so in the end we used a spray finish (clear semi-gloss). Next came taking the legs off of the original tabletop and deciding how best to attach our new top. The legs were attached to a cross-shaped piece that was glued to the underside of the table.

Here's the original table top, the cross piece, and the legs off to the right.

My dad glued the crosspiece on, attached the legs, and hauled it in the house for us to use on Christmas Day.

Depending on the light, the table has a nice tawny look or a rich cherry hue--in either case, it matches the legs better than I could have imagined.