DIY Farmhouse Outdoor Patio Table made with 2×4’s for less than $60

So excited to share this project with you and even more excited to have it done and enjoy it at our home!  I have been participating in a monthly DIY challenge this year and have loved the motivation it has been to help me create something for a certain theme each month. This month’s At Home DIY challenge was to build something using 2×4’s so I took 17 2×4’s and turned it into an outdoor farmhouse patio table! 

I am in love!  And officially have a nicer table outside than I do inside, but I plan to remedy that soon!    So on to the details…

Supplies I used:

• 17 2×4’s
• Spax screws
• 1 1/2 inch pocket hole screws
• Varathane Classic stain in Special Walnut
• Varathane Spar Urethane in Satin
• drill, miter saw, orbital sander

The plan for the table came from Shanty2Chic and was so easy to follow – they even have a printable version on their site.  I won’t focus on the building part because they have all that on their site in detail but I will share my experience with building it, things I learned, and how I finished it. 

I started building around 1 pm and finished it by 9 pm but that was with lots of breaks to cool off (it was 95+ degrees outside), push my little girl on her bike, nap time/lunch time/supper time breaks, etc.   So with no interruptions, I could have knocked it out in a few hours. 

I started by building the base and that actually went really fast. 

I love the foot pads and the angles on the center support.   Then it was time to build the tabletop.  LOTS and lots of pocket holes made with my Kreg Jig!  I struggle with having a perfectly flat space to assemble things like this so I think I am going to have to buy a sheet of wood to lay down just to use as a flat surface for assembling planked pieces like this. The pocket holes help make everything come together tight and secure. 

Once I had assembled the tabletop, put the breadboards on the end, I flipped the leg base over on the top and screwed it down and it was done! 

The next day I sanded and sanded… that’s another thing I would do differently next time with a larger piece of furniture.  I would pre-sand each 2×4 after cutting to size before assembling.  I think it would have taken less time and been easier to do before rather than waiting until it was all assembled.  I would still have had to do just a bit of sanding where boards meet or to smooth the top but that wouldn’t have taken long. 

Then it was finally time to finish it with stain and sealer. I used one coat of Special Walnut stain and then distressed it with my orbital sander along the edges.  The top is distressed in this picture and the legs aren’t so you can see the difference. 

Here it is after completely distressed and ready to put a topcoat on it. Since this will be outside I used Spar Urethane in Matte clear and did several coats. 

I am so excited to finally have a table we can all fit around and that fits our back porch space perfectly!  Our back porch is long and narrow and a round table just didn’t really work here so this is perfect.  I am still considering building a bench to go with it against the house side but this all works for now.

I found the 4 wicker chairs at Walmart a month ago for $20 each on clearance – they are from the BHG Camrose Farmhouse line and I had been stalking them waiting for them to go down in price.  The black chairs were a yard sale find for $15 for both and were red but I pray painted them with some Rust-Oleum matte black spray paint.  The gray cushions were clearance find from Walmart 2 years ago for $5 each and the black pillows are the Pier 1 ones I shared that were $2 on clearance a few weeks back.  My dream table setup was to purchase this BHG Camrose table ($282) + 4 chairs ($69 each) which all at full price would have cost $558.00.  I was able to build this table for $60 including screws + $80 for 4 wicker chairs

The galvanized pots in the middle are from the BHG summer galvanized line that I found for $3.50 on clearance a few weeks ago.  I bought the utensil set specifically to use as a planter on this table filled with succulents and I love it

 

I am on the hunt for a new clearance outdoor rug but haven’t found one yet. 

Here’s some pictures of the whole porch – I have one more thing I want to build for out here and then we have some big plans for eventually doing something to expand the patio area into the yard but haven’t quite figured all that out yet. 

My husband built the table that houses his Big Green Egg (which we love and use all the time for grilling/smoking)  – you can find plans for a BGE table on their site and it was about 1/3 the price to build one vs. buy a pre-built one. 

There’s my DIY hall tree on the other side of the porch  – you can see how I built that here.  It gets lots of use with pool towels and pool stuff right now with it being so hot. 

We added this outdoor fan here in the spring and that has helped so much make this space more bearable during the summer – there used to just be an outdoor light there. 

And of course some simple string lights make everything better   They are so fun to turn on at night. 

This table should last for years and years to come and I hope we will enjoy hours of BBQing, visiting, game playing, smores eating and more around it as a family.

See what everyone else created with 2×4’s this month – I can’t wait to check them all out!