The Nicest Table I’ve Ever Built

A few months ago, I get this email that says, hey, what's your lead time? So I reply and say, right now it's about four to six months. And 90% of the time, that's where these conversations end. But not this time. This time, within eight minutes, the guy writes back and basically says, perfect, we're not moving for another seven months. I want a dining table. What's next? Now I don't want to look too desperate or eager. So naturally, I wait a full 27 minutes to reply. And when I do, I say, great, tell me what you have in mind. So long story short, we bounce a few emails back and forth. And what we determine is, he wants a big dining table with a slab top. Now at this point, I figure it's probably time that I send him a ballpark estimate. We look at some past projects, go over some design options. And then about five days later, I say, okay, you're probably looking at around 18 grand for a table like this. Then, absolute silence. Two minutes pass, four minutes, five. At this point, you can practically hear the tumbleweeds rolling through my inbox. But then, at the sixth minute, he writes back, cool, the top of my budget's 20k, the house is in Vegas, and we need it by June. I guess I'm building a table. So first things first, we need to pick a layout. The slab that I bought is about 150 inches long and 50 inches wide. But the table only needs to be about 96 by 40. So that's going to give us a few options. And not a huge problem, but right now the slab is positioned with what I would consider the uglier side face up. And as much as I wanted to flip the whole thing over to have the pretty side up, I decided not to because I prefer my spine unshattered. So I left it as is and took a bunch of pictures so that I could send the client some ideas. And actually, I'm getting kind of sick of calling him the client. So how about, I don't know, the guy lives in Vegas, Vega, Vincent Vega, Vinny. We'll call the client Vinny from here on out. So I sent Vinny a bunch of ideas to pick from. And he said that he liked E, which surprised me, honestly, because I always assumed that Vinny had other preferences. At this point, I can start roughing out the general shape. And by the way, the slab is facing pretty side up here, thanks to a friend that came and helped me flip it. Anyway, to cut it, I'm going to use my track saw. And whenever people do this, there's always a temptation to try to cut through the whole thing in one pass. Actually, you might have seen Cam from Blacktail Studio recently do this in a video. And he got the saw stuck. It's actually a pretty common mistake. I mean, I've never done it. And it's not because I think that I'm smarter than Cam or a better woodworker or anything like that. Truthfully, it's because my tool isn't as big as his. Only a little over two inches. And I know that some guys like to use different techniques for measuring. Like I bet Cam would probably measure from the tip to over the nut and just beyond the other tip. But I think it's only fair to measure the part that you can actually use. Right? Anyway, pay attention to this piece. This piece is going to be a factor in a couple minutes. And before I cut it off, it went here. Ish. So, good news for me and my spine. At this point, the slab is small enough that I can handle flipping it on my own. Up until this point, I had to bribe friends to come help me by buying them fish tacos. True story. That's actually how I got my friend to come help me. And now I need to figure out how the smaller piece is going to nest into the table. So that we can end up with something like layout E. Now, I don't want this to be airtight. But I definitely want it a little bit tighter than what you can see here. So I'm going to grind away any of the little nubs. And also make this edge closer to 90 degrees to help everything come together. Then the last thing that I always do the night before I pour epoxy is a sealer coat. After three years of making tables like this, I'll admit, I'm still not sure if this actually does anything. But I figure it can't hurt. Right? Well, that was stupid. I just made a mistake that's going to cost me about $300 in epoxy. So here's my note to future me. When you seal your slab, start with the pretty side face up. That way, when you flip it to get the underside, the pretty side will be face down overnight. And that's going to be the face that's going to end up getting all of these bumps on it where the epoxy cures. Now, the reason that that's important is because whenever I pour epoxy, I like to do it where the pretty side is face up, which means that's where those bumps are and they're harmless. But if you accidentally do it the way that I did do it, it's going to lift the whole slab up by like a quarter of an inch, which I know doesn't sound like much. But I actually went ahead and did the numbers, and that would equate to about 1,029 cubic inches or about four and a half gallons of epoxy. And at about $77 per gallon of epoxy, it's about a $300 mistake. So I'm going to go with option B and spend the next hour or so sanding everything flat. And I don't know, no big deal. I got my headphones. I'll just try to listen to a podcast and enjoy myself. Speaking of headphones, I get a lot of really dumb comments. But the other day, I think I may have gotten the dumbest comment ever from a guy named Martin who had to stop watching one of my videos because he couldn't stand how stupid I look in my headphones. Now, first, you don't have to tell me how stupid I look. I am well aware of how stupid I look. I mean, I've been living in this body for 44 years. So trust me, nobody is more aware of how stupid I look than I am. But second, can you imagine being so bothered by the way that somebody looks in headphones that you have to stop watching a video? And not only that, but then you have to comment about it. I'm making a joke and trying to have fun with the situation, but this is a real comment from a real person who clearly has issues bigger than my headphone usage. Now, generally speaking, I try not to make fun of people like Martin because the unfortunate reality of our situation is he knows what I look like, but I don't know what he looks like. So he could surprise attack me at any moment. But I'm not too worried this time because there's no way that Martin made it past the 10 second mark of this video when he spotted these bad boys. Anyway, I can really only think of one logical explanation for why he reacted this way, and that is Martin has an ear kink and I'm denying him. So, Martin, if by some miracle you're still watching, here you go. So you just saw me pour a very thin base layer of epoxy, and now that that's cured and there were no leaks, I can start topping everything off. But before I do, I want to find a way to get this little sliver piece that fell off back in. So I wasn't quite sure the best way to go about this. I thought about maybe hot gluing it in place or something like that. But instead, I ended up using this bridge clamp technique that you can see me using here. And I know that this is a very specific solution to a very specific problem, but it is something to keep handy in your back pocket for basically anytime you need to clamp something where a clamp can't reach. And I also toyed with the idea of not even reintroducing the sliver at all. If I had to guess, I think that the table would probably look fine without it, but I think it will look better with it, so might as well try. Okay, while that's curing, I'm going to get started on the base. So when Vinny first reached out, he said he wanted the table to be 96 by 40 and to be able to comfortably fit eight people and ten when needed. And in terms of style, he wanted something kind of like this. And I think with a design like that, you'd be fine with eight people, but ten's going to get a little dicey because the legs are going to get in the way. So to maximize seating, we could either do something where the base is more central or something where the legs are pushed towards the corners. And Vinny chose corners. And because of that, now the concern is that sometimes tables with legs pushed to the corners can look a little basic or boring, but I promised him that that would not be the case. So with the design that we landed on, the perimeter of the base is going to exactly match the perimeter of the top. But since the top is still curing in epoxy for about a week, I don't really know what those dimensions are at this point. But rather than just sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting to find out, I'm going to start making the parts that I can and just make sure that I leave everything bigger than it needs to be for now. So that's going to be the aprons, which are the pieces that go under the tabletop and around the perimeter, and the legs, which are, well, I'll assume you know what legs are. And actually, before I go any further, it's probably going to be helpful if I show you the exact design that we landed on. So you already know what legs are, and that they're going to be pushed to the absolute corners. And on these legs, there's going to be a taper that goes up to a smooth radius transition. And actually, because I'm going to make a set of plans for people who want to build this table, I'm going to make three different variations of the legs. You can think of them like a simple, intermediate, and advanced version. Now, it's probably going to take a few weeks to get these plans ready. So if that's something that you're interested in, sign up to the email list that I'm putting in the description, because when we're about a week away from launching it, we're going to do some kind of big pre-sale discount. And that's going to be how we notify everybody. And if you're not interested, no problem. Okay, question. Do you like it when people talk about money in these videos? Or do you think it's tacky? I kind of see it as a double-edged sword. Like on one hand, I know that people are interested in it because they ask questions. But I also understand how it can look like bragging or something. I also kind of hesitate sometimes because I think on the surface, it feels like good information. But the problem is that it eventually becomes bad information. Let me explain that. Sometimes people will ask me why I don't list how much pieces sold for on my website. So let's use this table as an example. This table was commissioned for $18,000 in 2025. That's a fact. But assuming I'm still doing this in 2035, and somebody comes along wanting the same piece for that same price, it's probably not realistic anymore. Material costs rise. Rent goes up. My labor will rise. So at some point, that old number is useless and potentially even harmful because it sets false expectations. Actually, there's a famous scene from a very popular movie that kind of illustrates this perfectly. The $5 milkshake from Pulp Fiction. Back in 1994, the thought of a $5 milkshake sounded insane. But now that's what you'd pay at like McDonald's. And Jackrabbit Slim's was supposed to be like a fancy retro diner. Inflation, baby. It's a son of a b****. Anybody remember the $6 burger at Carl's Jr.? So that's why I don't list prices on my website. They age like milk. Shakes. You didn't see that? The top is done cooking, which means now I can lock in its final size. And the most critical dimension is actually the thickness. And that's because let's say that you're aiming for a table that's 96 inches long, but it ends up being 95 or 97. Well, you're really not going to notice that unless you bust out the tape measure. But if you're aiming for a table that's 30 inches high and you overshoot by an inch, you will absolutely feel it. Seriously, try sliding a couple books under your table legs at home and sit down. You'll feel like you're watching Double Dare waiting for your mom to bring you a kid's cuisine. So I bought this slab online from a place called GL Veneer. And as a rough sawn slab, it was three inches thick. But before they delivered it, I had them flatten it using this giant machine that they call Pac-Man that does it like 100 times more aggressively than I could in my shop. So by the time that it arrived to me, it was closer to maybe two and a quarter inches. But after pouring the epoxy, I'm going to need to remove a good bit of material again so that it's nice and clean and absolutely dead flat, which is why now I'm taking it over to a place called Street Tree Revival, where they have another machine called a WoodWiz. And a lot of the times you see me do this step on my CNC. And the way that the WoodWiz works is really similar, except that it's operated by a person instead of a computer. But the advantage is that the cutter head's a lot bigger and more aggressive. So basically, it can flatten a slab like this in about an hour, where it would take me most of a day. So after everything was said and done between Pac-Man and the WoodWiz, now the slab's about one and three quarters of an inch thick. Which I suppose a pessimist might hear and think, great, you just lost 42% of a $5,300 slab. But I'm an optimist. So I like to think that we created about $2,200 worth of sawdust. It's all about perspective. Okay, in all seriousness, I understand the pessimistic point of view. And I'll admit, yeah, it doesn't feel great to think about how much wood goes to waste when you're building a piece of furniture. But I think that that mindset kind of misses the point. I like to think that what all of that extra wood gives you is optionality, to make the best final piece possible. And that's what really matters. Not squeezing every last drop of value from the wood. Like, I'm sure there are a ton of people who pay for Netflix, and all they watch is Stranger Things, The Witcher, and old episodes of Seinfeld. But just because they're only watching a tiny fraction of the entire Netflix catalog doesn't mean that they're not getting their money's worth. I mean, sure, yeah, I suppose you could argue that watching another show would technically mean that they're getting more value. But would they really be happier forcing themselves to watch Cooking with Paris? All that said, to avoid any extra waste, I want to make sure that I do something cool with the leftover chunk of this slab. And I'm thinking a large, squarish coffee table. Something shaped kind of like this. And I know that I want the table to have a sort of low power stance look to it. But I can't decide between these two designs. So why don't you let me know in the comments which one you think I should build? Let's codename this design Lovely. And we'll call this other one Fantastic. So you could say something like, I think you should build the Lovely table. Or vice versa. Okay, 96 by 40. That's what Vinny asked for. And now I can go ahead and cut it down to size. Except actually what I'm going to do right now is make it about 96 and a half by 40 and a half. And that's because with a design like this, the base and the top have to perfectly match. And if I cut the top to its final dimension now, and then try to build the base to that exact size as well, there's a really good chance that something's going to be off by just a hair somewhere. And even the tiniest little mismatch is going to be really noticeable. So I have to perfectly nail this. If I'm off by a quarter of an inch, I might as well be off by a mile. So the smarter move is to just leave it slightly oversized, get the base done and assembled, and then use the base itself like a giant template to trim the top to the perfect final size. So to get the base put together, the first thing that I'm going to do is mill all of the apron pieces and the leg pieces to the same thickness, which is going to be right around an inch and a half. Then I'm going to take my leg chunks and use my jointer to make sure that each chunk has one nice flat edge on it. And yes, chunk is a technical term. Not really. Now you might have noticed that there are eight leg chunks here, but the table only has four legs. And that's because each leg assembly is going to be made of two chunks with a miter joint. Two chunks equals one assembly. So that's the plan. But before I cut those, I need to cut the joint face on each piece or chunk. And this is going to be the part of the leg that joins up with the aprons. And I know in this shot, it looks like my hands are dangerously close to the blade. And in this shot, it probably looks dangerously closer. But in reality, I promise they're a nice safe distance. And it's not because I changed my positioning there or anything like that. It's because of an optical illusion called telephoto compression. It's why my brass chunky mechanical pencil looks long in this shot, but looks so much shorter in this one. And this remains true for all three beautiful color options. Link in the description. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Chunks. The next and last cut that I'm going to make on my legs before I start shaping them is just going to be a simple 90 degree cut along the top edge. So after I've done that on all eight chunks, they're going to be identical along these three sides. And really, these are the parts of the legs that are important for the table to be able to function. And then the rest of the tables just for looks. Now, I don't want to downplay it. I mean, obviously, those looks are very important. But that's just to say that the margin of error is a little bit more forgiving when you get to this stage. From the way our conversation kicked off, it's pretty clear that Vinny's a laid back kind of guy, which is great. I'll take a laid back client any day. Honestly, that's the perfect kind of client. He knows what he wants, but he's not sweating the small stuff. And he seems to genuinely trust me. Like, remember those word cloud things that were popular 10 years ago? Well, I bet if you made one from our entire email thread, the biggest phrase would be, I'll defer to your judgment. So on one hand, that's great. But on the other hand, it can be a little scary because there's always this fear that they could see the finished piece and be like, hey, Chris, I really like what you did here. But I don't know. Maybe I could have done without the ball and claw feet. Not that I'd ever do that, but you get the idea. Still, there are a few details that I do need his input on, mostly when it has to do with how I'm going to treat the edges. So the only detail that I'm certain about at this point is a gap that's going to go between the top and the base. And that's because this one is for looks and function. For looks, because it'll create a little separation between the base and the top, which looks nice. And for function, because it's going to allow the top to expand and contract throughout the year while camouflaging any tiny little misalignments. But then beyond that detail, we've got the inside front edges of the legs and aprons where I could do a heavy round over a big chamfer or nothing at all. And the same goes for the outside of the legs. Maybe I could do a large radius that flows up into a radius corner on the top. And then maybe even the tabletop itself could have a large round over. So just right there, that's like, what, 12 possible combinations? And when I asked Vinny what he preferred, you'll never believe this, but he defers to my judgment. And that is flattering. I'm glad that he trusts me. But I don't know if I can handle that kind of responsibility. And not to drop too many Pulp Fiction references, but come on, Vinny, remember that time that your boss made you responsible for taking his wife out for a nice simple night? Yeah, how'd that work out again? This next part of the project is the step that I was the most nervous about. Just because I've never tried cutting a miter joint this way before. And I already have a lot of time invested into the legs at this point. So it would really suck to mess something up at this stage. And, well, they came out great. Maybe the nicest miter joints I've ever cut. Actually, I did almost mess up one part. But thankfully, I thought about it before it was too light. And that is that you can't cut all eight parts the same. Because four of them are mirrors of the other four. So halfway through, I had to change my sled setup from this to this. And then I could cut the remaining four. And what's kind of weird is that I knew that the pieces were mirrors of one another early on in the process. But I don't know, for whatever reason, it just didn't dawn on me that I had to actually mirror the way that I was cutting them until I was standing there in front of my table saw. But thankfully, I caught it. If you watch a lot of woodworkers on YouTube, you will know that we love to ham up drama. So I think it's only fair that when things are going well, I should be sincere about that. And this slab has been, sincerely, the easiest slab that I've ever worked on. Like, it's all gone pretty much flawlessly, except for that epoxy bump mistake, which was completely my fault. So it's either that I'm getting better at this, or that GL Veneer knows what they're doing, and that's part of the reason that this slab was priced at a premium. As I said earlier, about $5,300 bucks. And at the same time, I bought this similarly sized slab for less than half the price. Now, I think the old me would look at those prices and think, well, this one's a ripoff and this one's a deal. But after building a bunch of these tables, I don't think that's true anymore. I actually think that for selling a table like the one I'm building in this video, the $5,300 slab is a better deal. Now, I think that I could make the same table out of either, but due to how rough the other one is, from my experience, I would estimate an extra maybe 20 hours of having to get more creative with the layout, and then probably a bit more chasing my tail trying to fix problems. And at that point, the savings are pretty much awash. And then in terms of the finished tables that each of those slabs would make, I just think that there are more people who would prefer the table that comes from the $5,300 slab. Now, where I do think that the cheaper slab is going to be awesome, and the reason that I bought it, is for building two or three medium-sized projects. In that respect, I do actually think it's a deal. And also, I'm just kind of a sucker for a rough slab. So, you'll definitely be seeing that one. A few weeks back, I was at a kid's birthday party, watching toddlers stumble around, when my wife made a passing comment about how much toddlers resemble drunk people. So, while I was sitting there pretending to enjoy watching Pin the Tail on the Donkey, I started listing to her the ways that these two very different groups are actually the same. You got your obvious things, like trouble walking. Both frequently have emotional outbursts. You'll often find them napping in weird places. They occasionally require diapers. And Dolores had to suffer through like 45 more minutes of this, but I'll spare you. Anyway, the reason that I bring that up is, it got me thinking about other groups of people who seem completely different at first glance, but the more you think about it, the more you realize they're actually very similar. And then it hit me. I build custom furniture, and I sell woodworking plans. And most people would assume that someone who buys an $18,000 table and someone who wants to build their own table would be on completely opposite ends of the furniture buying spectrum. But they actually have way more in common with each other than they do with the 99% of people who just buy regular furniture. They both want the same thing. Customization. I'd say about 75% of the inquiries that I get are from people wanting dining tables. And they always have specific dimensions and needs. Like when Vinny reached out. He wanted 96x40 and seating for 10. Now, that's no shocker. I mean, you would expect that with custom furniture. But I am embarrassed by how long it took me to realize that the same thing applies to woodworking plans. And I've always had this habit of using crazy angles and complex geometry when I'm designing, which always makes it tricky whenever someone wants to change dimensions. Perfect example. The last dining table that we made plans for, let's say you wanted to make a small change. No problem. But now let's say that you wanted to make a square 60x60 version. Well, the length of all of these pieces needs to change. The angles change. The joint changes. It's basically a ground-up redesign. And something I pride myself on is helping people to make those modifications when they're within reason. But honestly, it can get out of hand. And I spend a lot more time than you could imagine going back and forth with people to help them get a build done. So going into this one, I had an agenda. Selfishly, I wanted to make this table ridiculously easy to customize. If somebody wants to make it six inches longer, just make these pieces six inches longer. Want it wider? Make these pieces longer. So I really do think that anybody who wants to modify this design should be able to get the job done on their own without any problems. Because while toddlers and drunk people both occasionally need their handheld, people building my plans shouldn't. You just saw me assemble that ladder shape thing and my two end sub-assemblies. And now it's time to bring everything together. So I always like to start off with a dry assembly just to make sure that everything's going to work out. And as you can see here, I actually did this just prior to making that ladder assembly. So it's always tricky whenever a bunch of parts need to all come together at the same time. And thanks to me being an idiot, I made things slightly trickier on myself. Long story short, in an ideal world, I would have four long clamps to get the base put together, two for each joint. And that's because if you only put one clamp up here at the joint, it makes the other end want to spread apart. So I like to place a second clamp about midway down the leg and apply pressure until the distance between the feet matches the distance at the top. And then that's when I know that I've got good even pressure. Here's where we come back to me being an idiot. So I used to have six of these long pipe clamps, two more than I would have needed. But when Sean moved, we split them up three and three, which was very dumb. We should have done two and four, or six and zero even. Anything but three and three. Three and three is a terrible idea. Now, thankfully, I was able to rig something up using two by fours and my third and final clamp, and it got the job done. And you're probably thinking, isn't there a much more straightforward solution, which is to just go and make another pipe clamp? But in addition to being an idiot, I'm also lazy. So I don't know. I guess the moral of the story is just stay together for the clamps. Over the years, I've had several commenters say that I should get the Shaper Origin. So I got the Shaper Origin. And I figured I'd take it for a quick little test drive on something simple, like installing some C channel. Now, I actually don't think that this table needs C channel because the design of the base is essentially doing the same thing that C channel does, but I already had some on hand, so I figured why not? All right, so very, very quick first impressions. I'll say I was impressed, but I'm going to leave it there for now. I mean, I already have a lot of thoughts, but I really want to ignore them until I've spent more than 30 minutes doing something harder than cutting straight lines to form any concrete opinions. But good test drive, and I'm excited to try more. You tell me if you think this is crazy. Here, I'm installing some leveling feet. They cost about $1.50 each, and that price includes the threaded insert. So $6 worth of leveling feet, protecting and holding an $18,000 table. It's like hiring a mall cop to guard the Mona Lisa. Bad business decision? Now, in my defense, I don't like these feet because they're cheap. They just happen to be cheap. I like them because they work and they've got a really low profile. And just out of curiosity, I just went and looked for the most expensive leveling feet that I could find, and I found these for $323 each. But I think they might look a little goofy on this table. Okay. Now, obviously I'm joking. I'm not really worried about the feet. They're going to be fine. But maybe I should be more careful because I actually really did just go through a situation where a very small, seemingly inconsequential decision ended up costing me about $30,000. And sadly, no jokes here. This is all very true. So as a lot of you know, about nine months ago, I launched my own wood finish called Sample73. And for the first six months or so, things had been going really well. We were ramping up production. We had sold about 1,500 units. Customer feedback was awesome. Everything was looking up. Then one day I get an email from a guy in Australia whose bottle of accelerator leaked and started foaming over. So naturally, I feel terrible about this. But after chatting with him, it seemed like it might've just been a one-off fluke. So I refunded him, sent a replacement. No big deal. Then a couple months later, I get another email from a customer with a similar issue. Only this guy lives here in the States. And at that point, that was too, too many issues for me. So I immediately paused all sales, emailed every customer, and told them stop using Part B and offered either a full refund or a soon-to-come replacement. So it turns out, after talking with the company in Germany that manufactures the raw materials for the accelerator, it was our plastic bottles. So we switched to a different bottle that's no more expensive, but it's one that they've had 17 years of success using, had to re-bottle thousands of units, and then shipped them all out again. Fun little lesson to learn for $30,000. I guess the good news is that we got to learn this lesson early and fix it. And when it comes to the finish itself, it's been nothing but good news. People love it, and I'm sure they're going to love it even more in the new and improved non-exploding bottle. I'm joking, it never exploded. But I don't know, that sounds cooler than foamed over. And also to celebrate the fact that we've solved the issue, the reviews are coming in hot and very positive, and we're coming up on our one-year anniversary, we're running our first ever sample 73 spring sale. So this is going to be the perfect time to try it out, or stock up if you're like Trask or Mark here. The link's in the description, so check it out. Real quick, there were two things that you just saw me do there that could be confusing. So one, the tape. That made it so that my first pass with the router left the top just slightly bigger than the base. That way, when I make my final pass, I'm only removing a very small amount of material, which means that there's a much smaller chance of it leaving burn marks. And two, you saw me marking and drilling holes for some threaded inserts. Back before I ever assembled the ladder piece, I cut three recesses into each stretcher. And they were shaped like this, which is going to allow me to attach everything, but also leave room for expansion and contraction. So with the top and the base attached, I'm going to take care of any of the aggressive sanding that I'm going to do on the side here. That way, if there are any changes in the shape, the two will still perfectly match. And then I'm going to use a rabbiting bit to cut that little gap that's going to go between the base and the top, like we had talked about earlier. Remember, that was one of those details that Vinny left me in charge of. And this was the smartest thing to do, in my opinion. And I do have an opinion, because you gotta have an opinion. Okay, we are definitely on the home stretch at this point. There's really only one more thing that I want to do. And weirdly, it's something that I've never personally done before. So the 11th hour of a project seems like kind of a weird time to try something new. But I want to add a few little table buttons on each end. So what is a table button? It's a little piece of wood shaped like this that's going to go into a slot on the aprons at the ends. And then a screw goes up through it and into the top. But maybe the more important question is, what's the purpose? So this table definitely doesn't need these. Like, they aren't for structure. The threaded inserts and the bolts that we used earlier are going to provide way more structure than these buttons will. But those are only attaching the table in these locations. And I really didn't want to put more threaded inserts over here so close to the ends. Now, with a more normal table design where the top overhangs the base, I wouldn't worry about this because if there was a tiny gap between the top and the aprons, you'd never see it. But here, with it being right on the perimeter, you might. So the way that this is going to work is, I'm going to install them so that the top side of the button is just a hair below the top of the apron. That way, when I put the screws in, it's going to pull the two pieces together and eliminate any potential little gaps between the two pieces of wood. Not here between the button and the wood. That one you actually want. All right. We're 36 minutes into this video, which means one of two things. Either A, you're enjoying it, or B, you're asleep. Now, I know a lot of people ask for a like during their intro, but I never do that because how would you even know if you liked the video at that point? Like, what if at the 30-second mark of a 40-minute video, I asked for a like, you gave it to me, and then from that point forward, it was just 39 and a half minutes of me cutting my toenails or something. You'd probably feel pretty cheated, right? And maybe a little nauseous. Well, you can rest easy because this video is guaranteed toenail-free. And I hope by now I've earned your trust and you're finding some kind of value or entertainment from this video. And if you are, I am sincerely asking for your like. I know it's cliche, but likes really are YouTube's currency and they help new people discover my channel. So if you're still awake and able, I'd be super grateful for your support. And I thank you. When I look at this table, I see the nicest table that I've ever built. I know that sounds like a bold claim, but hear me out. I don't mean the coolest or even my favorite dining table that I've ever built. I mean the nicest. And I think that there's a very particular reason for that. With most of my builds, what you're seeing is my first and often last attempt at that design. So when I step back and I see it assembled for the first time, I can't help but to be critical about the design. Even when I'm mostly happy with a piece, my mind still immediately goes to what I would change next time. It's just natural. But with this table, it doesn't. And I think that's because, comparatively speaking, it's a very normal table, for lack of a better word. Like, I would hesitate to even say that I designed it. It just kind of exists. And sure, there's a few little details that set it apart. But fundamentally, we've all seen a table like this before. And because of that, I'm not nitpicking it. I'm not looking for all the ways that I would tweak it the next time. I can just see it for what it is. A table. And that feels nice. Thank you for watching!