Having moved in and decided I was going to build a lot of our furniture I needed a starting project. Given my zero knowledge, tools, or skill some might suggest that kicking my woodworking career off with a ten seater dining room set was a bit optimistic, they were right but I had a go anyway.
For a week or two our dining room became my shed (I didn't have anywhere else to work at that point) and I got my hands on some Cedar - it sounded more exotic than pine - and off I went.
Sadly I was only able to get my hands on some fairly wet Cedar, it certainly wasn't the fully kiln/air dried wood that I aim for know and even back then with no clue what I was doing I realised it would probably move quite a bit as it dired and aged.
Still, our house is a fairly rustic, full of wood character home so I decided to plough on anyway and if the table cracks a bit or the joins eek apart then it would kind of suit the room anyway.
I decided to use dowel joints on the table top because they were the only ones I'd heard of and mortice tenon joints (or my hand chisled, looks like the wood has been chewed version) for the chairs and table framework.
This photo has the dubious privilege of displaying the first thing I built and every tool I owned at that point, I'd literally just been out to buy the clamps needed for the glue up.
I was really pleased with the finished version, everything was reasonably square despite making the benches (I'd just read about lap joints via google) and chairs mostly on our uneven gravel driveway.
This photo makes it look particularly good prior to colouring and finishing. We stuck some medium oak dye on it and several layers of danish oil - it is really heavy, Karen and I nearly broke ourselves lifting the table top in place.
Fast forward nearly two years and I'm dissappointed with the massive movement that the wood has produced - I know know about breadboard ends and other techniques to cope with this but with the amount of moisture in the wood I think even these methods would have struggled. It is still going strong and actually looks pretty good in the room - very rustic but when (when?!) I get time and all the other projects are done I'll be tempted to relegate this to a garden set and build something with (hopefully) a bit more skill.
Here is the finished effort, you can just see the joins have widened - the chairs are still unmoved however and having been given a set of second hand luxurious curtains for this room we decided to chop up the spare material and got someone local to sew them into matching cushions for the benches and chairs.
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