How to Build a Wood Dinner Table Frame

Examine your table legs. Typically premade table legs have a square top that the aprons of the table frame are attached to, either with mortise and tenon joints, housing cuts or some other similar joint like dowel pegs or biscuits. For a home woodworker, housings are the simplest way to attach the aprons to the legs.

Attach a 1-inch router bit to your router. Mark a 4-inch-long line in the middle of two adjacent sides of the top of your four premade table legs, which have square 4-by-4 inch tops.

Cut a 1-inch-deep and 1-inch-wide housing along the 4-inch line you marked. These housings will hold the ends of the table aprons and hold the table frame together. Repeat on all four legs, so each leg has two housings.

Apply wood glue in the housings on the legs. Hold the legs so that the corner with the two adjacent housings is facing inward, and then slot two planks of 26-inch 1-by-4 lumber and two planks of 58-inch 1-by-4 lumber into opposite housings, so that a rectangle is formed with the legs at each corner. Clamp the aprons in position onto the legs and let the glue dry.

Drill two pilot holes, sized for 2-inch screws, through the inside corner of each leg into each of the apron ends that are glued into the housings. Secure the aprons in the housings with 2-inch screws.

Miter the ends of four planks of 6-inch 1-by-2 lumber to 45 degrees, and then insert these brace planks across the corners of the apron frame. The mitered ends sit flush on the inside of the apron frame and the brace forms a triangle at each corner of the frame.

Secure the brace planks in place with a 1 1/4-inch screw through each end into the apron frame. This dinner table frame suits a tabletop of around 36 by 72 inches.