DIY Honeycomb Table with Industrial Pipe Legs

Trey and I decided to update our dining room with a new table. I loved my wood pallet table. We’ve been through a lot with that table. You’ve probably noticed it in countless food posts here on ABM. But I just felt like I was ready for a change.

A few considerations/challenges we faced: Our dining room is more of a dining area/breakfast nook. It’s quite small. We have people over quite a bit for drinks or dinner. So the more seating we can fit (comfortably) in the space the better. We really wanted to upgrade our table to seat six, instead of four.

I wish we had space for a table that seats eight, like Elsie’s dining room table. Maybe in our next house. Dare to dream. I also wanted a table I could move easily. I know, weird.

But, depending what time of day I’m photographing the recipes you see here on the blog, I often need to move my dining room table closer to the window. And hairpin legs sometimes aren’t best for scooting.Trey came up with the idea of creating a hexagon-shaped table. This proved to be a GREAT solution for maximizing the amount of seating our little dining area can accommodate. We also decided to use plumbing pipes fitted with casters (wheels) for the legs of the table. I have been loving the look of pipe leg tables lately.

Now, to outright buy a pipe leg table is quite expensive (we’ve seen them for upwards of $1500). Plumbing pipes are more expensive than you might guess (or at least more than we would guess). To build our table from scratch, with all the supplies, cost right around $250 to make—most of which was spent on the plumping pipes.

So, this table was still a bit of an investment. But, we certainly saved a pretty penny by making our own rather than purchasing one (not to mention, we couldn’t find a table for sale that really matched our exact needs). If plumbing pipes just don’t fit your budget you could easily reduce your costs with hairpin legs or even painted PVC pipe.Supplies needed:
four 10×1-inch black iron nipple fittings (yes, they’re actually called that, we learned)
eight 8×1-black iron nipple fittings
one 16×1-inch black iron nipple fittings
four 1-inch floor flanges
four wheels to fit 1 inch pipe (we got 3-in, size 6 casters with brakes from here)
six 1-inch black iron tee fittings
four 8-foot 1×12 wood planks (can be a bit longer, we’ll be cutting this down)
six 4-foot 1×2 wood pieces (can be a bit longer, we’ll be cutting this down too)
one 4-foot 1×8 hard wood piece (can be up to 3 inches wider or longer)
protractor
pencil
16 (at least) 0.75-inch screws
50 (or so) 1.25-inch screws
sand paper
wood stain (if using) and polyurethane (we used semi-gloss)

You will also need a couple clean rags or brushes, a power saw and drill. With the exception of the fitted casters (you could replace with 4 more flanges if you don’t want the mobility), we were able to find all necessary supplies at our local hardware stores.First, secure your four 8-foot planks together using your 4-foot hardwood piece using the 1.25-inch screws.Next, you’re drawing your hexagon. Don’t let yourself get too overwhelmed by this part, but there’s a little math involved here. Trey found this regular hexagon (all angles and sides of a regular hexagon are equal) calculator to make it a little easier for him. To figure out your side, you just need to measure the width of the 4 1×12 boards next to each other and divide that by 2. That number will be your in-radius.

As you may or may not know 1×12 doesn’t necessarily mean your wood is 1 inch by 12 inches. That’s actually the measurements before the wood is dried, so 1×12 is more like 0.8×11.25. Never figured out why it’s labeled like it is, but I’ll leave that to the experts.

Anyway, luckily your box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s are pretty consistent with their wood sizings, so you could probably get away with using our measurements:
• Inradius: 22.5 inches
• Sides: 26 inches
• Corner angles: 120° (true of all regular hexagons)

Really, all you need to know is the length of the sides of your hexagon (all are 26 inches) and the angle of your corners. Then the rest sorts itself out. So center, measure, and mark 26 inches on either side of your 4 wood planks attached together.

These should be exactly across from each other. Now break out your protractor (super cheap and can be found at any hardware store), set it to 120°, and place it at the end of all of your 26-inch side marking.

Draw yourself a starting reference line, and use a longer straight edge to continue it, completing the side. You actually only need to do this 4 times, as the remaining 2 corners create themselves. And just like that, your hexagon is drawn.
Follow your drawing to cut the edges of the table.Put together your pipes to make sure they suit your table well. Maybe you want to swap out one of your pipe pieces for something longer or shorter (we had a little trial-and-error check with ours).

This can be done by one person, but it’s much easier with two—especially if that second person is willing to run back to the hardware store to get a different length of pipe. Just FYI. For the lip, we didn’t bother being nearly as exact on our angles, since they were pretty much never going to be seen. Cut 6 26-in pieces from your 1x2s. Then, cut overcompensated inward angles (like you’re making the bottom level of a pyramid).

We just eyeballed the angles but made sure the ends stayed exactly 26 inches. So once you were looking at the finished table, the corners were seamless. Then, using your 1.25-inch screws, secure the lip in place. This sturdies the table and makes it look quite a bit cleaner/more professional.

TIP: Your wood will never be perfect and is bound to have some warping here and there. After you’ve secured you lip, take a look and see if some of your main planks are sticking up a little. If so, just use the scrap from your 1x2s to secure the four main planks together even more. Just be sure you don’t put anything in the way of your table’s legs.Next sand the entire table, so it’s super smooth. If you are staining, add your color choice. We used wheat stain. Allow to fully dry. Seal with polyurethane. We used two coats for extra protection.

Once that’s dry you’re ready to screw the legs and wheels onto the table top (this is where you use your 0.75-inch screws). You can also do this before you sand/stain.

But we were still waiting on our wheels to come in the mail at this point. There are several methods for adding the wheels to the table, but these were super easy. Just pop them on, tighten the bolt underneath just a little, and you’re good to go!I love our new table! We added two more ghost chairs (gifted to us by Elsie) to our existing four we already had. I think ghost chairs are the perfect fit with our dining space. It keeps the area from looking overly cluttered, since we’re trying to fit 6 people and chairs into a relatively small space.

We also moved our vintage cow hide rug from the living room to the dining room. Our dining area is one of the most high traffic spots in our home, and I love how our cow hide rug has held up against all the dog hair (we have three dogs, too much?) and foot traffic so far.

Even with it being vintage (no clue how old it actually is), they are actually surprisingly durable and easy to clean.  I can’t wait for our next dinner party. Now we can invite an extra couple! Thanks for letting us share our new dining room table with you all. xo. Emma + Trey

P.S. Our ghost chairs are all from Amazon, the peg board is a DIY, cow hide rug is vintage from Red Velvet and the “pot luck” letters are vintage from Funtiques.

Credits // Authors: Emma Chapman and Trey George, Photography by: Emma Chapman