How to Build a Trestle Table and Bench--For Your Outdoor Space!

hey guys it's sheriff for woodshop Diaries and today I'm gonna show you how I made this outdoor table and matching benches so if you're ready to get building let's go a friend of mine recently asked me to build her an outdoor table and two matching benches now I've built several tables before even some outdoor ones but I'm not well-versed in working with treated lumber it's wet it's heavy it's green and it smells really weird so I'm just not a huge fan but at the end of the day the table and benches turned out really nice and it was a fairly simple project to assemble but because of the treated wood it was a bit of a learning experience with some trial and error I'll speak throughout the video about the good and the bad but I did want to share a little detail before we get started hey guys so two quick things about this project that I wanted to go over before we get started is that since this is going to be an outdoor project I use treated wood for the building so in order to prevent your screws from rusting or corroding it's best to use exterior grade screws that are meant for use in treated foot so I use pocket holes for this project and I needed exterior grade pocket hole screws and I thought that I had like an entire box and I just had interior grade pocket hole screws and I didn't want to go back to the store so I ended up using these decking screws inside my pocket holes now that worked okay but the issue with using these screws versus these screws is that beheads different so with the washer head it will go into the pocket hole and when you drive it it will stop because the washer head will keep it from going all the way through the board it will stop at the end of the pocket hole and then pull the board up underneath tighter than the joint but with these it'll just keep driving off all the way through the hole it won't stop because of this cone shape so I had to be very aware of how far I was driving these screws into the pocket holes throughout the project that was a little challenging it was a little stressful and so if I had to do this project over again I would definitely go back to the store and purchase the exterior grade pocket hole screws for I think better and more efficient results now again the beauty of doing it yourself and building it yourself is that you can use whatever type of joinery that you prefer for this project obviously I use pocket holes but feel free to use your own preferred joinery method so I think that's it let's get building by the way if you want plans and exact dimensions for this build I've got them linked in the description below so to get started I cut down my table legs from my four by four posts I knew that I wanted these to slant at a slight angle but I wasn't sure how much so I started with five degrees and then I thought that it needed a little more and I finally settled at 7 degrees so all the legs on both the table and the benches are modern at 7 degrees [Music] once the legs were cut down I cut two top aprons and to bottom stretchers from two by fours to go between them as I mentioned earlier in the video I use pocket holes to assemble this table so I drilled pocket holes into the ends of these two by fours and began assembling between the legs I used some wood glue on these joints but I'm 99% certain that was just a waste of glue because the wood was so wet it just made the glue really runny and it was just squeezing out of the joint and also as I previously mentioned I used decking screws instead of pocket hole screws here so I just had to be really attentive to how deep I drove them I didn't want to drive them all the way through the two by fours so as soon as the joint pulled tight I quit driving once I had my two sides assembled I wanted to add a small detail to the ends before attaching the long apron pieces I wanted the finish table to look like this long apron piece extended through the legs and there are a million fancy ways in really time-consuming ways that I could have done this but I just cheated and used four inch wood screws I randomly came across four four inch wood screws in my assorted screw collection leftover from when we built our house and that meant that I had one screw per piece for the table ideally you'd use two screws per piece but this is all that I had and these were just decorative so I just used one in this case I cut these pieces with a seven degree miter on one end and clamped it onto the leg then I pre-drilled and drove the four inch wood screw to hold it tight and I did this on all four legs [Music] now it was time to start putting everything together I cut two long apron boards to stretch between the two sides again with a seven degree miter on each end i assemble these using pocket holes and the screws [Music] [Music] also sometimes it's helpful to have an extra set of hands in the shop but clamps make a decent substitute when necessary [Music] [Music] I knew that this table base was going to start getting pretty heavy and it was kind of in the way of in my shop so I went ahead and moved it out into the driveway to make room in my shop to keep working and at this point I decided to go ahead and start on the benches and I would finish up the table later I just really needed the rest of the wood that was in the floor end in my way to be out of the way and put together the design on the bench was similar to the table but since the spaces were so tight between the legs the assembly was slightly different in hindsight there were probably some easier ways to assemble this but hindsight is useless once the project is finished so it is what it is I cut my legs just like the table with a seven degree miter only shorter then I cut and attach the long aprons between the legs first after using pocket holes on the table I attempted just toe nailing the bench pieces by pre-drilling at an angle then driving the screw and that worked okay the joints did pull tight but I think that the pocket holes worked a little bit better and looked a little cleaner so I ended up switching back to the pocket holes on the second bench but here you'll see me toe nailing the screws in place once the two long sides were together I cut three short blocks to go between them I screwed the end pieces into the legs and then added another screw through the long apron pieces into the short blocks [Music] you I also added a piece in the middle here to keep the long aprons from bowing outward or inward [Music] and finally I cut one by sixes and I guess actually we treated lumber there not one by sixes they're like five quarter or something but I cut these boards for the bench tops and screw them into the base I left a small gap between the boards just to allow it for some water to drain off since they will be outside and exposed to the weather [Music] once I built both benches I went back to finish up the table I installed two stretchers into the top to give me another surface to screw the top boards to later and then I added a long stretcher between the two short table sides at the bottom I measured the top aprons to cut this piece and wasn't thinking that the bottom would be longer due to the 7 degree miter luckily I bought an extra 2x4 so that didn't cost me another trip to the store once I had this cut to the correct length I screwed it in place and step back and realized the benches were missing something so I debated whether or not to attach small braces at the bottom of the bench legs to match the table these pieces would be so small I just wasn't really sure it was worth adding but my friend Sam with DIY huntress convinced me to add them so I cut and attached them by screwing them in at an angle through the bottom so that you wouldn't see the screws again there's a thousand ways to attach this piece and in hindsight I wish that I had notched out the legs to set this piece in place but maybe next time for now at this point I went ahead and stained it now the finish went on really splotchy because the wood was already so wet the wood supposed to absorb the finish but if it's already so saturated it can't absorb it so it goes on uneven and since I was making this for a friend I did want to go ahead and sting it for her but I'm recommending that she come back this fall and apply another coat for better coverage and coloring I carry the table base and benches out to the yard so I could take some pictures and I carry the top boards out there to attach them once they were attached there was no way that I could carry that out there by myself [Music] so I send up the boards on the table and lift a very small gap between them for drainage and screw them in place using three-inch wood screws by the way if you wanted to use this table design for an inside dining table this same design works great but I do have a separate tutorial for how to build tabletops that I will link in the description below this tutorial is great for interior tables that you don't want to leave gaps between and you want to look nice and flat and smooth across the top once these top boards were stained it was finished at least for now now this was definitely a learning experience project and while I'm happy with how it turned out I'll definitely be doing some things differently if I build something like this again in the future but I think for the foreseeable future I will be sticking to indoor furniture and leaving the treated lumber at the store so I hope you've enjoyed this video in this project and check out the plans linked below if you'd like to build one for yourself if you've enjoyed this video I'd love it if you'd subscribe so you don't miss out on what's coming next thanks so much for watching and until next time happy building [Music]

Channel: Shara Woodshop Diaries

Views: 66,083

Keywords: outdoor furniture plans, How to Build Outdoor Table, Dining set building plans, building with treated wood, trestle table and bench plans, outdoor project plans

Id: 65lsaxzK-KY

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020