High Top Table Leg Idea
George VondriskaDescription
The next time you’re making a table or, more specifically, a high top table, we’ve got a great leg hack that’ll make your woodworking life easier. Especially if you want the legs to be turned. Check out newel posts at the local lumber yard or home center. Yep, stairway parts make good furniture.
I recently made a high top table for my middle kiddo, and wanted four turned legs for it. Yep, I know how to use a lathe, but I’m not great at making duplicates. Especially when you want four legs that are actually identical. Plus, the legs are big (I wanted them 4” x 4”) so it would have taken a significant glue up to make it happen. That got me shopping for options, and I found a great answer at my local lumber yard.
Material
Since we’re robbing stairs to pay furniture, you’ll probably find what I did. There are lots of material choices available. Imagine all the different woods that are used for millwork and stairs; red and white oak, cherry, pine and, for my project, poplar. I knew that I wanted to leave the rails and top natural and paint the legs, so poplar was a great choice for me. Poplar is a wonderful material for paint grade project. parts, too.
Fill your house with your own furniture
Furniture making provides so many options for you and your lucky friends and relatives. Tables, chairs, beds….where will your imagination take you? If newel posts as legs interest you, cool. If not, we’ve got more lessons on building furniture that’ll help you move forward. For specific info that’ll help you craft your own legs, have a look at this video: Planing Furniture Legs.
Unlock Your Woodworking Potential!
Sign up for our newsletter for endless woodworking inspiration! Become a member today and gain access to a world of craftsmanship.
Ginny, who just moved into a new apartment, is gonna get a high top table out of me. So, when I was starting this, I'm like, okay I need four really long legs for a high-top table. So when you look at these legs, I cheated, I did not turn these. What are those? What were they in their first life? What were they really intended for? Here's a hint. They're actually sitting here upside down. These legs are actually newel posts. So, I was really happy to find these. They came from a local lumber yard. They had a lot of choices, a lot of options to choose from in different designs. And honestly, when I took it from newel post to upside down I thought, man, that makes a pretty good looking table leg. And I don't have to try to turn four of those identical. So, if you're looking into doing a project like this I think this is worth exploring these particular legs- I knew I was going to paint them, so they're poplar, but a variety of species are available: oak, walnut, maple, cherry. You just gotta poke around on the internet, poke around at local lumberyards and see what you can find in your area. But next project that you're doing, if it turns out it's a high top table, I would definitely explore this idea of cheating and using stairway newel posts as your four legs.
For a shorter smaller accent table I think a variation on this idea would be to use staircase spindles. I do not have a lathe so this would work for me as a source for turned legs. Thanks for the idea.