A good friend of mine was working with an interior designer, and the dining table they recommended was going to cost about five grand. There are tables worth five thousand dollars. But when your buddy builds furniture for a living, you have to make the offer. So I did.

They wanted that classic mid-century modern look with the splayed legs. And that’s a design I’ve been avoiding for years.

Why I kept chickening out

Most splayed leg tables use one big center rail, with legs that come in at an angle from both sides and meet at the same spot. That’s a lot of joinery crammed into a very small space, on a piece that has to hold up a big dining table. Every time I sketched it out, I couldn’t get comfortable with how it would hold up over time.

So I found ways around it. In 2024 my brother asked for a splayed leg table, and I tilted the whole leg and rail assembly instead of doing the real thing. I had one other idea I never got to try: two rails instead of one, so each rail only has to connect to one leg on each end. This table finally gave me the excuse to build it.

What’s in the course

Mid-Century Modern Table: Design and Construction is 11 lessons covering the whole project, start to finish:

• Design: working through the joinery problem and landing on a solution you can actually build in a home shop
• Drawing and templates: turning the design into real measurements and the templates that make the angles repeatable
• The legs: shaping the beveled legs and the tapered facet that gives the table its look
• Joinery and assembly: leg joinery, the bevel joint, and the rails, with options whether you use a Domino, a dowel jig, or traditional mortise and tenons
• The top and finish: building the walnut top and putting a finish on it

I also show you where things went sideways, so you know where the traps are before you get there.

How the build-along works

The first three lessons are up now. Three more drop every Friday, and every Tuesday at 4pm Central I’m going live from the shop to talk through that week’s lessons and answer your questions. Bring questions about the build, your own version of the table, or anything you’re stuck on.

Can’t make it live? The recordings go up afterward.

The pre-order price ends October 23

Like we’ve done with build-along courses before, the course stays at the pre-order price of $49 until the last lesson is released. That’s Friday, October 23 at 11:59pm Central. After that it goes to $79.

When you buy the course, you get lifetime access to it, plus a lifetime membership to The Wood Whisperer Guild.

See you in the shop,
Marc