233 Lancaster Ave · Kitchen nook
Build sheet for tomorrow. One sheet of plywood, four 2×4s, two 2×2s. Two runs hard to the wall on a ledger, nine legs, screwed down from the top. About 3½ hours including the store. Holes and the counter wrap come later. The finish depends on whether you paint — two sections below.
| Qty | Item | Note | $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3/4″ sanded plywood, 4×8 | Four rips at 12″, along the 8-foot length | 65 |
| 2 | or instead: 1×12 × 8′ pine | the better buy if you are painting — see below | 68 |
| 2 | 2×4 × 8′ | ledgers | 8 |
| 2 | 2×2 × 8′ | the legs — seven if you glue the front rail, nine if not | 12 |
| 2 | 1×1 × 8′ | front rail — kills the top screws and buys back two legs | 12 |
| 1 | 2″ screws + wood glue | rail into legs; the glue is what makes the rail work | 14 |
| 1 | Stud finder | the ledger is the whole back of the bench | 25 |
| 1 | 3½″ structural screws | ledger into studs | 12 |
| 1 | 1⅝″ wood screws | seat into ledger, seat into legs | 8 |
| 1 | Countersink bit | if you don’t have one — for the back screws into the ledger | 8 |
| 1 | Rubber furniture pads | for the table’s pedestal base, unrelated but do it | 5 |
| 1 | Water-based poly, qt + synthetic brush | one coat goes on tomorrow — see “which one” below | 31 |
| 1 | only if painting: iron-on edge banding | goes on before anything wet | 12 |
About $212, $33 of which is a stud finder and a countersink you keep. Optional while you are there: a 2½″ hole saw + arbor, $20 — and if you are painting, drill the holes before any paint goes on.
What to say at the panel saw
“Four rips at twelve inches, ripped the long way.” That gives four strips 12″ × 96″. The long way matters — face grain runs down the 8-foot length and a strip cut with it is about twice as stiff. Same cuts, same price.
Do the crosscuts at home, not there. The strips fit in the car fine, and you want to cut the west seat after you have re-measured the run.
We ruled this out a week ago, but that was before you were thinking about paint — and paint is exactly the condition that flips it. If you are painting, the plank is arguably the better call. If you are staying clear, it is not.
Under paint the plank wins on the thing that was costing you most
No plywood edge. That was the single biggest paint problem — the stripes and voids no number of coats fixes, the $12 of banding, the twenty minutes of ironing. A 1×12 has no laminations. The edge just paints.
S4S, so no sanding. It comes surfaced. No rips, so no panel-saw dependency and no risk of them cutting across the sheet. Easier to carry — two boards rather than a 4×8.
And pine is the paint-grade solid wood; every painted built-in and piece of trim in the house is this.
Two things it costs you, and one is specific to this bench
Knots bleed through paint. Common pine has them, and their resin comes through a water-based primer as brown haloes within months. You must use a shellac-based blocking primer — Zinsser B-I-N — not the tintable water-based one. That is not optional and it is the mistake that ruins painted pine.
It will move; plywood will not. 11¼″ of flat-sawn pine changes about 1/8″ across its width with the seasons, and this bench sits over 120″ of radiator heating one face and not the other — which is exactly the gradient that cups a board. Plywood’s cross-plies make this a non-issue. Drill the clearance holes at the legs a size oversize so the board can breathe rather than split at a screw.
If you go planks
Sight down every board on the rack. Pine at a big-box store is frequently crowned or twisted, and you cannot fix a bowed board with screws over 78″. Plywood is flat by definition; this is the tax for the plank. Reject anything that is not straight looking down its length and its edge.
Two 1×12 × 8′ covers everything. Board A gives the 78¼″ west seat with a 17¾″ offcut — that is your finish test coupon. Board B gives the 48″ north seat with 48″ left, enough for the 25″ counter wrap and change.
Nothing else in the plan changes. Same ledgers, same nine legs at the same spacing, same 3¼″ hole line (a 2½″ hole leaves 2″ behind it and 6¾″ in front). The seat is 11¼″ rather than 12″, which is a rounding error against your 12″ stools and quietly buys another inch of walkway — 26¼″ becomes about 27¼″.
| Plywood sheet | Two 1×12 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | ~$65 | ~$60–76 |
| Prep before finish | sand, band or fill the edges | none |
| Store cuts | four rips, the long way | none needed |
| Under paint | the edge is the tell | better — if you use B-I-N |
| Under clear | better — matches the table | knots and grain, a different look |
| Stays flat over a radiator | yes | no — ~1/8″ and some cup |
| Spare material | two whole 12 × 96 strips | enough for the wrap + a coupon |
| Board selection | none, it is flat | sight every board |
The two “better” rows are the whole decision. You are leaning paint, which is why you are asking — and under paint the plank removes the edge problem entirely, which was the most annoying part of the job. Take it, buy B-I-N rather than the grey water-based primer, and spend the saved twenty minutes picking straight boards.
| Part | Stock | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| West seat | 12″ ply strip | 78¼″ | not 78½ — see below |
| North seat | 12″ ply strip | 48″ | east end is open, so exact |
| West ledger | 2×4 | 78¼″ | runs into the corner |
| North ledger | 2×4 | 48″ | starts 12″ off the west wall |
| Legs × 7 (or 9) | 2×2 | H − 3/4″ | H is your stool height |
| Front rail | 1×1 | 78¼″ + 48″ | flush with the front edge |
| spare | 2 whole strips | 12 × 96 | the wrap, and hole practice |
Ten minutes with a tape, and everything else follows
1. H, the seat height. Measure the top of a stool. They work; that is data. Every other height comes off it.
2. The west run. Cabinet face to the north wall. Should be 78½″. Cut the seat and ledger 78¼″ — that piece is captive at both ends and a tight one will not drop in. The gap disappears under a bench.
3. The north run. 60″ out from the west wall is where it ends. The west seat takes the first 12″, so the north seat is 48″.
4. Every stud, both walls. Mark them above the ledger line so the marks survive once the ledger covers the wall.
The ledger line is the one to get right
The 2×4 goes face-flat against the wall — 3½″ tall, projecting 1½″.
Ledger TOP = H − 3/4″. That is the line you snap, because the seat sits on it. At a 17¼″ stool that is 16½″, and the ledger’s bottom edge lands at 13″.
Get it level along its whole length. The seat copies whatever the ledger does, and it is much easier to fix now than with plywood on top of it.
| Time | Step | Mins |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | Home Depot — four 12″ rips on the panel saw, gather the rest | 45 |
| 0:45 | The four numbers. Snap the ledger line, mark every stud | 20 |
| 1:05 | Crosscut the two seats and the two ledgers. Cut ONE leg | 25 |
| 1:30 | Stand the one leg under a seat offcut and sit on it. Then cut the other eight | 15 |
| 1:45 | West ledger up, then north. Two 3½″ screws into every stud | 40 |
| 2:25 | West seat down first, into the corner. Then the north seat butted to it. 1⅝″ screws every 12″ on a line 3/4″ off the wall, countersunk | 30 |
| 2:55 | Legs. Four west and three north if the rail is glued; five and four if not. Two 2″ screws each, through the rail | 30 |
| 3:25 | Sit on them. Eat dinner off them. | — |
Ledgers before seats, seats before legs. Both ledgers go up before either seat goes down — then the second seat gets measured off the first one actually in place, rather than off a drawing.
If you are painting them, yes — skip to the next section, the answer is different and it is yours. Everything here is about the clear poly plan. For a couple of days, yes. For a month with four kids, no — and the reason is not the one you would expect.
Clear poly does not cover a stain. It seals it in, permanently.
Paint covers. Poly is a clear film that goes over whatever is already there, so a juice ring or a grease shadow you finish on top of is a juice ring or a grease shadow under glass, for the life of the bench.
And you cannot sand it out. Sanded plywood has about 1/32″ of face veneer and less after the mill has been at it; a spill that soaked in is deeper than that. Sand until it goes and you cut through to the ply below, which reads as a hard-edged pale patch — worse than the stain.
If you did mean actual opaque paint, the answer flips completely: paint hides all of this and you can take your time. Everything here assumes the clear satin poly you chose.
The one that actually forces the issue is grease, not colour
Butter, pizza, salad dressing. An oily patch does not just darken the wood — waterborne poly will not wet out over it. You get fish-eyes and craters, or a patch that never really bonds. That is a repair, not a blemish.
If something greasy lands on bare ply before you finish: blot it, clean it with mineral spirits, not water (water raises the grain and drives it deeper), and let it dry a full day before any poly goes near it.
The fix is free: the finish’s dead time is exactly the ledger time
Poly needs 2 hours between coats and you need 2 hours to hang ledgers and cut legs. Brush the strips flat on sawhorses while the frame goes up, install the next morning, and you have a properly finished bench with both faces sealed and nothing to redo.
| Time | Woven schedule | Mins |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | Store, four numbers, crosscuts, one leg + sit test | 105 |
| 1:45 | Coat 1 — both faces, all four edges, on sawhorses. Poly if undecided, primer if you know you are painting | 20 |
| 2:05 | West ledger up, then north | 40 |
| 2:45 | Sponge the fuzz off, coat 2 | 20 |
| 3:05 | Cut and taper the nine legs | 40 |
| 3:45 | Coat 3, then leave it overnight | 15 |
| next am | Seats down, legs on, done | 60 |
It costs you one dinner, not a weekend. And it is the only version where the underside gets sealed too, which you cannot do once the strips are screwed down.
If you install bare anyway
Perfectly reasonable — you want to sit on them tonight. Two rules while they are bare: wipe every spill immediately rather than letting it sit, and keep markers off them, which on bare ply is a permanent line.
Then finish them within a week or two, before the general grime of four kids darkens the surface unevenly — that is the thing you cannot undo and would not notice happening. Six screws out, strips off, brush both faces, back on.
One coat is not the shortcut it looks like. It stops a wiped spill, but it is thin at the edges and a puddle left sitting still gets through. Two coats is where it becomes genuinely water-resistant; the third is for wear and can wait indefinitely.
Matching the black chairs is a good instinct and it changes two things — in opposite directions. It does not let you buy cheaper plywood. But it does make your original question’s answer “yes”.
Gloss is the least forgiving finish there is, so the substrate matters MORE
Clear poly on sanded ply looks like wood, and wood has grain, so nothing reads as a defect. High-gloss paint on a horizontal surface is a mirror — it shows every ripple, every sanding scratch, every void and every grain band that swells differently under primer.
So the intuition inverts: painting is the case where you want the smoother panel, not the rougher one.
| On the rack | $ | Under gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Sheathing / CDX | ~40 | voids, football patches, rough face — reads as painted sheathing |
| MDF | ~40 | paints beautifully, and swells forever at the first spill. Not near kids or a radiator |
| Sanded pine BC | ~65 | fine — but soft and hard grain bands telegraph a little |
| Birch / hardwood-faced | ~75–85 | take this if they have it. Closed, even face — less priming to get flat |
You would save about $25 going down and spend it back in sanding, on the one component you sit on. The saving is not there.
The edges are the tell, and they cost $12 to fix
A raw plywood edge under clear poly reads as “plywood, on purpose”. Under gloss black it is a row of stripes and voids that paint sinks into unevenly, and no number of coats fixes it. It is the single thing that makes a painted-plywood project look like a shop project.
Iron-on birch edge banding. Pre-glued veneer tape, a roll is about $12, a household iron applies it and a utility knife trims it. Twenty minutes for both runs, and afterwards the edge paints exactly like solid wood. Do the front edge and both exposed ends; the wall edge does not matter.
The stack, if you go gloss
Primer twice, sanded between. This is where the flatness comes from, not the topcoat. Any decent bonding primer; sand at 220 after each coat until it feels like paper. Skipping the second primer coat is what makes painted plywood look furry.
Topcoat: a waterborne alkyd enamel — Benjamin Moore Advance, Sherwin ProClassic, or equivalent. They self-level, dry hard, and come in gloss. Not wall latex, which stays soft and scuffs. Oil-based is harder still but yellows, which is fatal if you pick white.
Read the recoat window on the can before you plan the weekend. Waterborne alkyds range from 4 hours to 16 — that is the difference between a two-day job and a four-day one, and it is the biggest single variable here.
Then leave it alone. Enamel is dry in hours and hard in two to three weeks. Poly wanted one week; this wants three. A heel dragged across a bench on day three leaves a mark that is in the paint, not on it.
And this is why your original instinct was right after all
Paint is opaque, and primer — a shellac- or oil-based one especially — blocks stains rather than sealing them in. Juice rings, grease, marker: all of it disappears under a coat of blocking primer.
So the whole argument for finishing during the build evaporates. Build them bare tomorrow, eat off them, live with them for a few weeks, and paint when you feel like it. You will also know by then whether black is actually what you want down there.
Two things to change if paint is the plan
Drill the vent holes before you paint, not after. A hole saw through cured gloss chips the rim on both faces, and you would then be hand-painting thirty bores to match. Drilling bare and painting over is invisible.
Consider satin or semi-gloss rather than high gloss. The chairs are vertical and catch light edge-on; a bench seat is horizontal and catches it flat, which is the hardest possible surface for gloss. Same colour, same match to the chairs, and it hides dust, crumbs and scuffs by an order of magnitude. High-gloss black on a seat four children climb on will look scuffed by spring.
| Clear poly | Painted | |
|---|---|---|
| Materials | $96 | ~$154 |
| Passes | 3 coats | 2 primer + 2 sand + 2 colour |
| Hands-on | 50 min | ~2½ hrs |
| Elapsed | one day | 3–4 days |
| Hard enough to abuse | 1 week | 2–3 weeks |
| Can wait, bare | no — stains lock in | yes — primer blocks them |
| Matches the chairs | no | yes |
Yes, put something down tomorrow. It is twenty minutes, it is the only chance to do the underside without unscrewing anything, and it ends the bare-wood problem completely. The question is which product, and “regardless of final colour” hides the fork — primer is not colour-neutral, it is opacity-committing.
Primer is a one-way door
Primer is opaque, by design. You cannot clear-coat over it and see wood. Getting back would mean sanding pigment out of a 1/32″ face veneer, which means sanding through it.
So a coat of primer tomorrow is not a hedge, it is the decision. Fine if you have made it — but you told me an hour ago you wanted natural because you hate the amber, and you are now weighing black. That is a live question, not a settled one.
One coat of the water-based poly keeps both doors open
Same twenty minutes, same sealing, and it is water-white so it forecloses nothing:
If you stay clear — it is coat 1 of 3. Zero waste.
If you paint — scuff and prime over it. This is not a workaround, it is what every painter does to a varnished door or a poly’d table, and it is reliable. Procedure below.
Against primer’s advantage — it blocks stains slightly harder and would have been a required coat — that is a cheap price for not deciding tonight.
So stop at ONE coat tomorrow, not three
This follows directly, and it is the useful bit. Coat 1 is the only one with a deadline — it is what stops spills soaking in. Coats 2 and 3 are for wear and can wait indefinitely.
And every coat you add is more film to sand off if you paint. One thin coat scuffs back to nearly bare in minutes; three is real work. So if black is even half likely: one coat tomorrow, then stop and live with them. If you settle on clear later, coats 2 and 3 bond straight to coat 1 with a light scuff, no penalty for the gap.
The underside is fine either way — poly under, paint over, nobody looks.
Painting over it later, in order
1. Let it cure a week. Scuffing uncured poly gums the paper and tears the film. If it has been in use for a month, better still.
2. Degrease. This is the step people skip and it is the one that fails. A kitchen bench carries body oils and food film. Dish soap, rinse, dry properly.
3. Scuff at 220 until there is no gloss left anywhere. You are not removing the poly, you are dulling it — and the test is visual: any patch still shiny is a patch the primer will not grip. Raking light finds them.
4. Bonding primer, not wall primer. INSL-X Stix is the specialist for sticking to hard glossy surfaces and takes a tint; Zinsser B-I-N grips anything and is faster; Bulls Eye 1-2-3 is fine over a properly scuffed surface. Then two coats of the enamel as before.
Prove it on a spare strip first. You will have two whole 12″ strips left over — poly one, let it cure, then run the full stack on it, cross-hatch it with a knife and rip packing tape off. Nothing lifts and you have your answer before you touch the bench.
| Tomorrow you put down… | If you go clear | If you go painted |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing | stains lock in permanently | fine — primer blocks them |
| One coat of poly | coat 1 of 3 | cure, degrease, scuff, bonding primer — one extra pass |
| One coat of primer | not possible | coat 1, and the best stain block |
Poly is the row with no bad cell. Primer only wins if you already know you are painting.
If you do know you are painting, then yes — prime, and three details
Have it tinted light grey. Grey under black saves you a topcoat; white under white is obvious. A light grey is the one tint that is decent under both, so it is the right pick while white-versus-black is open. Leaning black already? Go mid grey.
Band the edges first. Iron-on banding wants bare wood, not primed wood — so if edge banding is happening it goes on tomorrow, before anything wet.
Do both faces and all edges. Then you never have to take the bench apart: later you only topcoat what shows, in place, and the underside is finished forever after one pass.
Either way it slots into the same dead time
Crosscut, seal or prime both faces on sawhorses, hang the ledgers while it dries, install. Water-based poly and water-based primer are both handleable in about an hour, so this adds roughly half an hour to the day and you still eat off them tomorrow night.
Buy the quart tomorrow, then — the buy list has it as a second-session item, and on this plan it is not.
Worth doing, and the arithmetic is already right: a 1¼″ screw through a 3/4″ cleat lands 1/2″ into the seat and leaves 1/4″ of margin. A 1½″ screw would arrive flush with the eating surface, so do not let one into the pile.
The one trap: never let the cleat carry the weight
If a leg only bolts to the side of a cleat, everybody’s weight travels down through screws pulling out of half an inch of plywood — the one thing plywood is worst at.
| Load path | Capacity |
|---|---|
| Leg top bearing directly on the seat underside | 700–900 lb |
| Through two screws in withdrawal from 1/2″ of ply | ~240 lb |
Three to four times the capacity, for free, by letting the leg touch the seat. The cleat then only locates it and stops it racking, which is almost no load — the wall takes the racking through the ledger.
Make it one continuous rail rather than nine blocks — and glue it
Run the 1×1 the whole length, flush with the front edge, glued and screwed up every 12″. Each leg then butts against the back of the rail, top bearing on the seat, and takes two 2″ screws driven horizontally through the rail into it. Nothing enters the top face anywhere.
That one change does four things at once. It stiffens the front edge 3.6×, because glued the rail and seat act as one section instead of two:
| Front edge, adult 200 lb | Bare | Glued rail |
|---|---|---|
| West, 5 legs — 19⅝″ bays | 0.111″ | 0.030″ |
| West, 4 legs — 26″ bays | 0.262″ | 0.072″ |
| North, 4 legs — 16″ bays | 0.060″ | 0.017″ |
| North, 3 legs — 24″ bays | 0.204″ | 0.056″ |
So it buys back two legs. Seven legs with the rail is stiffer than nine without — and “minimal legs, easy to sweep under” was your original ask. About $12 of 1×1 to delete two legs and improve the numbers.
It makes the front edge read 1½″ thick rather than 3/4″, which is the difference between furniture and shelving. And on plywood it covers the laminated edge where people actually see it — the edge-banding problem, solved structurally.
One condition: glued, not just screwed. Screws alone let the two pieces slip against each other and you get far less than 3.6×. Not gluing it? Keep nine legs.
Do it on sawhorses, and only fix the front
All of this happens with the seat upside down on sawhorses, before it goes on the wall. Mark the leg positions, glue and screw the rail, then install. Working under a finished bench in a 16½″ gap is a miserable way to find out you needed a right-angle driver.
Leave the back screws alone. The seat-to-ledger line sits 3/4″ off the wall, behind everyone, in the same dead strip as the vent holes. Nobody will see them and they are doing real work holding the seat down. The screws worth eliminating are the front ones, where you sit and look.
Screw lengths: 1¼″ up through the rail into the seat, 2″ horizontally through the rail into each leg, 1⅝″ down through the seat into the ledger at the back.
Two alternatives if you would rather not add a rail
Pocket screws are the real furniture answer — angled up into the seat from the top of each leg and from the ledger, nothing visible anywhere, no cleat at all. A Kreg jig is about $40 and you would use it forever.
Or one steel angle bracket per leg, about 60¢ each: screwed to the leg’s side and up into the seat with 5/8″ screws. No jig, no glue, no rail — and the leg still bears directly on the seat, which is the only rule that actually matters.
Read this once in the car
1. West seat 78¼″, not 78½. Captive at both ends. Cut it to size and it will not go in.
2. One leg, then sit on it, then the other eight. Seat height is the only thing here you cannot fix afterwards.
3. Snap the ledger line at its TOP (H − 3/4″), not its bottom. Easy to get 3½″ wrong in the wrong direction.
4. Stud marks go above the ledger line or the ledger eats them.
5. Countersink the back screws into the ledger. The rail takes care of the front ones, but a proud head at the back is still a proud head, and you will not go back and do it later.
6. Rips the long way. If the panel saw cuts across the sheet you get four floppy strips and no way to tell until someone sits on one.
| Number | Value |
|---|---|
| Seat depth, wall to front edge | 12″ |
| Seat height | H — measure a stool |
| Ledger top / bottom | H − 3/4″ / H − 4¼″ |
| Ledger projection | 1½″ (2×4 face-flat) |
| Leg length | H − 3/4″ |
| Leg spacing, west / north | 26″ / 24″ with the rail; 19⅝″ / 16″ without |
| Leg setback from front edge | 3/4″ — butted behind the rail |
| Seat screws into ledger | every 12″, 3/4″ off the wall |
| Vent hole line, for later | 3¼″ off the wall |
All of it defers cleanly, and none of it makes you undo anything.
30 holes at 2½″, 4″ centres, on a line 3¼″ off the wall. 15 along the west run, 12 along the north, 3 crossways at the west bench’s north end over the corner radiator. The west run’s last 18½″ has no radiator under it and needs none. That is 147 sq in against a 120–180 target for 120″ of radiator.
Smaller holes lose twice, and the second loss is the one that kills it
A 1½″ hole is 36% of the area of a 2½″ one — area goes as the square, so halving the diameter quarters the hole. Obvious enough.
The part that is not obvious: you cannot make it up by drilling more of them, because the web between holes does not shrink with the hole. For a fixed web, the open area per inch of run is πd² ÷ 4(d+w) — which rises with diameter. Small holes are permanently behind, at every spacing.
| Hole | Centres | Web | Holes | Open area | vs 120–180 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1½″ | 3″ | 1½″ | 40 | 71 | 39–59% — no |
| 1½″ | 2½″ | 1″ | 48 | 85 | 47–71% — no, and 48 plunges |
| 2″ | 3½″ | 1½″ | 34 | 107 | 59–89% — marginal |
| 2″ | 3″ | 1″ | 40 | 126 | 70–105% — the real fallback |
| 2½″ | 4″ | 1½″ | 30 | 147 | 82–123% — the pick |
Correction to what I told you earlier: I said a 2″ saw does not get there. That was true at 4″ centres, where it gives 94 sq in. At 3″ centres it does get there — 126 sq in, at the low end of the band, for ten more plunges. So the choice is not 1½ or 2½; there is a real option in between.
On sitting on them: the holes are in the strip you do not sit on
At a 3¼″ centreline a 2½″ hole spans 2″ to 4½″ from the wall — 22% of an 11¼″ seat, all of it at the very back. And on a seat this shallow everybody perches slightly forward, because sitting hard against the wall leaves your knees with nothing under them. The back two inches are dead area, which is exactly why they are the right place for holes.
You are also never sitting on a hole. A bottom spans a good twelve inches along the run, which covers three holes and three webs — it is a perforated strip, not a gap. Closer to a bistro chair’s punched seat than to a cattle grid.
And you can settle it in five minutes rather than reasoning about it. You will have an offcut. Drill three holes at 4″ centres, lay it across two stools, and sit on it. That answers the question better than any of the above, and it is the same coupon you were going to use for the finish test.
The rest of it
The 3¼″ line clears the ledger by half an inch, so every hole is a straight bore through 3/4″ and nothing else. Back it with scrap so the underside does not blow out, ease every rim with sandpaper rolled into a tube, and seal the bores when you finish — they are end grain and thirsty. If you are painting, drill before you paint.
Staple aluminium insect screen under the hole line, about $8. A 2½″ hole swallows a crayon or a fork and what is underneath is hot; the screen stops both that and a small arm reaching down. It costs roughly a third of the open area, which the 2½″ scheme has the margin to give away and the 2″ scheme does not — one more reason the bigger hole is the safer pick.
Until the holes exist the radiator vents forwards under the seat rather than up into the room. It works; it is just slower.
Water-based poly (Minwax Polycrylic or Varathane), satin, synthetic brush. Oil-based ambers and keeps yellowing — that is the thing you hate. Flat on sawhorses, both faces and all four edges, sawn edges drink three times what the faces do.
Coat 1 dries fuzzy — that is the grain raising, it happens once, knock it back with the 200 sponge. Coats 2 and 3 need a scuff at most, recoat at 2 hours. Three coats on top, two underneath, 50 minutes of brushing across a day. Sit on it next day, do not scrub it for a week. Not below 50°F or it goes milky and stays milky.
25″ off a spare strip, two legs at the outboard corners, 40 minutes. The cabinet face is a finished end panel, so it blocks nothing. Nothing screws into the cabinet — the inboard end ties to the west run’s frame. Round the free corner 3″ before you finish it.
Tonight, independently: rubber pads under the pedestal base (not felt — felt is built to slide), six to eight screws through the flange rather than three or four, shim any rocking foot, wrench the column bolt. That takes out the shift and most of the wobble.
The rest is a block in the crook, seat to tabletop, screwed both ends — about 11″, roughly 6″ out from each wall, with a bench leg under it. It turns one support point into two about 21″ apart, which ends the shift, the rotation and the tipping together. Glue a 4½″ ply cleat to the tabletop rather than screwing up through a 3/4″ top with the good side up. Height and position both wait until the table is where it will live.
The vent holes are the cable pass-throughs: 2½″, at the back of the seat behind everyone, and they swallow the slack. Don’t leave a charging brick in the cavity — it runs 100–120°F over the radiator and most bricks are rated to about 104°F. Either swap a receptacle for a tamper-resistant USB-C one, or put the brick in one of the two radiator-free stretches. Clip the cable off the fins; 6-foot cables.
Notching the ledger for the outlets is fine. It is a cleat lagged to every stud, not a spanning beam. Notch the bottom edge, never the top, and put a screw into the stud each side of the notch.
Still open, still separate. Sill at 20½″ and the seat at 17¼″ makes it a 3¼″ step up, so the bench makes the climbing easier, not harder. Measure the sill depth — 4″ or under and a sloped board is the whole answer for one plank; over 5″ and it becomes a comfortable wedge they will still sit on.
The bean is built and in — 42¼ × 54¼, mounted on the old pedestal through a plywood puck, in at 1:40pm on 30 August against a 3:35 estimate. This is v2 — and it is second. Build the benches, sit on them, then measure where the table edge wants to be; that number sets the arms, and everything on this page follows from them.
Arms
46¼ × 58¼ in, from the corner
Crook corner
4 in radius, was 8½
Counter end
16⅛ in flat, then 45°
Tabletop
2151 sq in · +20.5%
One 4×8 sheet, water-based poly rather than shellac, and the puck re-drilled to a new balance point. The arms below are the best numbers before the benches exist — treat them as the current answer, not a commitment.
What the benches will tell you, and what it changes
Sit on the finished bench and find where the table edge wants to be, measured out from the wall. You want it landing 4–6″ over the seat, so it is on your lap rather than at your knees. Call that number D, and the bean’s right-angle corner sits D from each wall.
D does not change the shape at all — the arms, the 4″ corner and the flat are the table’s own dimensions. What D moves is where the table sits: the walkway number, and how far the flat overhangs the wrap. So nothing on this page is wasted by waiting.
What could change is the arm lengths, if sitting there says the table should run further along a bench than 46¼ and 58¼. The east arm is capped near 47″ by the sheet’s 48″ width; the west has room. And if they do change, the flat follows a formula rather than needing me:
flat = √(east² + west²) − west
That is the free maximum for any pair of arms, exactly — it is the point where the 45° line lands on the fattest point, which is what makes it free. The fattest point itself is at east²/√(east²+west²) along the east arm and west²/√(east²+west²) down the west.
| East arm | West arm | Free flat | Fattest point | Tabletop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42¼ | 54¼ | 14½ | 25-15/16 / 42-13/16 | 1829 |
| 44 | 56 | 15-3/16 | 27-3/16 / 44-1/16 | 1967 |
| 46¼ | 58¼ | 16⅛ | 28¾ / 45⅝ | 2151 |
| 47 | 58¼ | 16⅝ | 29½ / 45-5/16 | 2188 |
| 46¼ | 62 | 15⅜ | 27⅝ / 49-11/16 | 2285 |
Note the last row: a longer west arm gives a shorter flat. The two trade against each other, because both are spending the same diagonal. Worth knowing before you decide the table should reach further down the bench.
The shape
Both instincts are right, and one of them is more exactly right than you probably realised.
| v1 | v2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| East arm | 42¼″ | 46¼″ | |
| West arm | 54¼″ | 58¼″ | |
| Crook corner | 8½″ | 4″ | 1.9″ more reach |
| Tabletop | 1785 sq in | 2112 sq in | +328, or +18% |
| Balance point | 17.9 / 23.0 | 19-9/16 / 25¼ | new puck position |
| With the 16⅛″ flat | — | 2151 sq in | +20.5% — the spec |
“+4 on each axis” really is a 4″ offset
Worth confirming because it did not have to be true: growing both semi-axes by 4″ moves the curve 3.97 to 4.00″ from the old one at every point along it. So you get a genuine parallel push-out, and you can still lay it out with the same batten-and-offsets method rather than anything clever.
Still one 4×8 sheet — 46¼ leaves 1¾″ on the width, so ask for a single rip at 46½″ and keep the factory edge for the long straight side.
What it buys in seats: fewer than you would hope
You get 3 easy / maybe 4 on the west and 2 easy / maybe 3 on the east. In kid-widths that is 3.88 and 3.02. v2 takes them to 4.16 and 3.30.
So it does not add a new place anywhere — it turns both maybes into yeses. Four along the west and three along the east stop being a squeeze and become the normal arrangement. That is worth having, but it is a different claim from “seats another person”, and it is the honest one.
The corner is the sleeper win. Dropping 8½″ to 4″ pulls the table back only 1.66″ from the crook instead of 3.52″, so whoever sits in the corner gets 1.9″ closer to their plate — and you are right that nobody needs the wide radius to get in, because people arrive along the bench, not through the corner.
The check to run once the benches are in
v2 pushes the curve 4″ further into the room, and the walkway is measured to that curve. Taking the benches to 12″ hard against the wall bought 5.7″; v2 spends 4″. The bench change more than pays for the bigger table — the path lands near 22¼″, about 1½″ better than the nook has today, not worse. That turns this from a trade into a free upgrade, so the check below is a sanity test rather than a decision.
Unless your chair argument holds — and it is checkable. Push a chair in as far as it will go, then measure from the table edge out to the back of the chair. If the chair back sticks out past the edge, the chairs already define the pinch, v2 costs you nothing on a normal day, and you should build it. If the chair tucks inside the edge, the tabletop is the pinch and v2 costs the full 4″.
Do it sitting on the finished bench, at the same time you find D. Both numbers come off the same five minutes, and neither is knowable before then.
Your photo settles the part I could not see: the gap between the table and the counter is not how anyone gets to the benches, so widening the table there costs nothing to get in and out. And it turns out there is an exact number where it stops being free — and it is slightly more than you asked for.
16⅛″ of flat, and you pay nothing at all
Run the edge straight off the west arm’s tip for 16⅛″, then a straight run at exactly 45°, and that run touches the old curve precisely at its fattest point — 28¾″ along the east arm, 45⅝″ down the west arm. From there the curve is completely unchanged.
That is the whole trick. Not one point of the original curve moves. The walkway at the crook, the clearance at the corner, the reach past the east arm — all identical, to the thousandth. You are only filling in a wedge the ellipse was leaving empty against a cabinet.
And it is self-checking: if your straight run leaves the flat at 45°, you are exactly at the limit. A speed square is the whole verification.
| Flat | Table | vs v1 | Straight edge to sit at | Walkway cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| none | 2116 | +18.5% | 0 | — |
| 12″ | 2131 | +19.4% | 24¾″ | none |
| 14″ | 2140 | +19.9% | 29¼″ | none |
| 16⅛″ | 2151 | +20.5% | 34″ | none — the limit |
| 18″ | 2165 | +21.3% | 38¼″ | 1.9″ |
| 20″ | 2181 | +22.2% | 42⅞″ | 3.9″ |
| 24″ | 2224 | +24.6% | 52¼″ | 7.9″ |
16⅛″ is the spec. You asked for 12–14 and the free allowance is bigger, so there is no reason to leave any of it. And note which column is worth the most: not the 35 square inches, but 34″ of continuous straight edge at the seat you use every day, where today the curve turns away the instant it leaves the arm.
Marking it out
Three marks and a straightedge, before any batten comes out:
1. West arm 58¼″ from the corner. 2. Square across from that tip, 16⅛″ — call it A. 3. The fattest point: 28¾″ along the east arm, 45⅝″ down the west arm. Join A to it with a straightedge and check the angle — it must read 45°. If it does not, one of the three marks is off, and you have found it before cutting anything.
Then plot the rest from the offsets below and spring the batten from the fattest point round to the east tip. The batten never touches the flat or the 45° run — those are straightedge work, which is faster and more accurate than a curve anyway.
| Along the east arm | Down the west arm | |
|---|---|---|
| 28¾ | 45⅝ | the 45° run lands here |
| 30 | 44-5/16 | |
| 32 | 42-1/16 | |
| 34 | 39½ | |
| 36 | 36-9/16 | |
| 38 | 33-3/16 | |
| 40 | 29¼ | |
| 42 | 24⅜ | |
| 44 | 17-15/16 | it drops fast from here |
| 45 | 13-7/16 | |
| 46 | 6-1/16 | |
| 46¼ | 0 | 90° tip, same as v1 |
Why the flat is worth more than its area
35 square inches is a rounding error on a 2,150″ table. The reason to do this is that the bean’s arm tips are 90° corners — you found that out cutting v1 — and an ellipse leaves a 90° corner heading straight out, perpendicular to the arm. So at the exact spot you sit, today, the edge turns away from you immediately.
The flat replaces that with a proper straight edge, and the 45° run continues it: 34″ of straight in front of the one seat you use every day. That is a laptop and a coffee with room to put an elbow down, instead of a receding curve.
Shellac softens around 150°F and a bowl out of the microwave is 160–180°F. The film softens, traps moisture, and you get a white ring. The useful rule: if you can’t hold it comfortably, it will mark the table. That is not a defect you can finish your way out of with shellac — it is the deal shellac makes, and the other half of that deal is that the rings come out in fifteen minutes.
First fix: re-coat the whole top
One thin coat, ragged on. The fresh alcohol re-dissolves the top of the old film, the rings level out and vanish, and you get the third coat you skipped. Lowest risk of anything here — it treats every ring at once and you cannot really overdo it. Fifteen minutes, no sanding, no visible seam.
Second fix: pad the stubborn ones
Fold a lint-free cotton cloth into a pad, dampen with isopropyl — 91% if you have it, since 70% carries the water you are trying to drive out — then blot it until it is barely damp. Wipe across the ring in long continuous strokes, landing and taking off like a plane, and never stop moving on the surface. The film goes tacky, re-flows, the ring goes.
The risk is real: on a two-coat film a wet pad takes you to bare wood. Practice on a scrap first — shellac an offcut, burn a ring into it with a hot mug, fix that one before you touch the table.
Don’t use the iron trick. That is the standard advice for lacquer and poly; on shellac, more heat is the last thing you want. Alcohol is the direct tool.
And it settles the v2 question
This is data, not a nuisance. If the bean becomes the permanent table, shellac alone is not the finish — a family table meets hot bowls forever and you would be re-padding monthly. That pushes v2 to the stack below: dewaxed SealCoat as a barrier, then three coats of satin water-based poly. You lose the invisible-repair trick and gain a top that does not care about a hot bowl.
Check the can first, because it decides everything. Zinsser Bulls Eye Amber contains natural wax; Clear is dewaxed. Yours came out amber, so assume waxed — and polyurethane does not reliably stick to waxed shellac. That is the classic adhesion failure: fine for a month, then it peels in sheets.
The table you have now — one more coat of shellac, nothing on top
Fifteen minutes and it looks better than it does now. Shellac is uniquely repairable: new shellac melts into old, so a ring or a scratch wipes with alcohol and re-coats invisibly, which no other finish allows. For a family table that is a real strategy rather than a consolation — the trade is that you will be doing it, because water rings, alcohol marks and heat marks are all exactly where shellac is weakest.
v2 — water-based poly, satin, three coats
Stays clear instead of ambering further, recoats in 2–4 hours, low odour indoors. Oil-based is tougher but pushes the colour noticeably more orange and is an overnight-per-coat, smelly job.
The sequence, given the wax: one coat of dewaxed shellac (SealCoat) as a barrier — it sticks to waxed shellac and poly sticks to it, and that one step is the whole fix. Then scuff lightly with the 200 sponge, dry cloth only (no isopropyl, it softens what is underneath), then three coats of satin, hitting the edge hardest since that is still where water finds plywood. Give the underside a coat too so the faces stay balanced.
Test the stack on a scrap first. Shellac an offcut, add SealCoat and poly, wait 24 hours, scratch a cross-hatch into it and press packing tape down hard, then rip it off. Nothing lifts and you are good — that answers the wax question better than any label.
The thing people get wrong about poly: dry in hours, but about a week to fully cure. Wipe spills fast and keep hot plates off it for that first week or you will press marks into a finish that would have been fine.
So, two finishes for two tables
The current top: one thin coat of shellac. Fifteen minutes, the rings go, and it carries the table until v2. Do not put poly on it — the wax is why.
v2: SealCoat barrier, then three coats of satin water-based poly, both faces. That is the finish that stops this being a monthly job.
The number the puck does not change
The puck fixes stiffness; it does nothing for tipping. Stone off, roughly 23 lb on the far tip lifts the base — and v2 puts its tip 4″ further out, so that number gets smaller, not bigger. The bolted mount is what handles it, which is why the top has to be through-bolted to the flange and not just resting on it.