233 Lancaster Ave · Kitchen nook
One sheet of 3/4″ plywood ripped at 12″, two runs hard to the wall on a 2×4 ledger, nine legs, and a line of 2½″ holes to let the radiator breathe. No apron, no joists, no upholstery, no backs. About four hours plus the finish. This gets built first — sitting on it is what settles the table’s size.
Three decisions, and they simplify everything downstream
The seat runs all the way to the wall. No gap behind you, nothing to drop a fork down, and you can lean back on plaster instead of air.
The 2×4 goes face-flat against the wall — 3½″ tall, projecting 1½″. That is all the bearing a 12″ seat needs at its back edge, and the taller face gives you more meat for the structural screws going into studs.
No backs. Which means the holes only ever go through 3/4″ of plywood — no socket rail, no second 2×4 on either run, and nothing to line up.
What the seat-to-the-wall change actually buys
| 2″ gap behind | Hard to the wall | |
|---|---|---|
| Seat front, from the wall | 14″ | 12″ |
| Walkway at the crook | 23½″ | 26¼″ |
| Back support | none — you lean on air | the wall |
| Things down the back | constantly | never |
| Radiator vents through | the slot, 157 sq in | the holes only |
The walkway is the headline: against the 16″ the original design assumed, a 12″ front is 4″ back per wall, and the pinch is on the diagonal — 20.6″ becomes 26¼″. That is the single biggest complaint about the old nook, gone.
The one thing it costs is the free vent. The 2″ slot was doing the whole job for nothing; now the holes are the only engineered path out, so they stop being decorative. More on that below.
Cut list
Seat: one sheet of 3/4″ sanded ply, ripped at 12″ into four strips. Ask for the rips along the 8-foot length — face grain runs that way and a strip cut with it is roughly twice as stiff for the same money. Crosscut one to 78½″ (west) and one to 48″ (north — 60″ less the 12″ the west strip occupies). If you are wrapping the counter, take the 25″ wrap off the north strip too: 48 + 25 is 73″ of 96″, and both spare strips stay whole.
Ledgers: 126½″ of 2×4 — two 8-footers. Legs: nine at seat height less 3/4″, about 148½″, two more 8-footers if you use 2×4; see below for why you probably should not.
Measure the stools’ height and use that number, not my 17¼. They work; that is data. Legs are seat height less 3/4″.
Screwing down through the top
Fine here, but countersink — a proud screw head under a thigh is genuinely unpleasant. Into the ledger, one screw every 12″ on a line 3/4″ off the wall, dead centre of the 1½″. Two screws per leg, not one, or the leg pivots.
You are screwing into leg end grain, which is normally weak. It is fine here because the ledger is lagged into studs, so the wall takes the racking and the legs are almost purely in compression — the screws only locate them.
3/4″ anything is a shelf, not a bench, so leg spacing is the whole question. Deflection at the front edge, mid-bay, with the face grain running along the run:
| Leg spacing | Kid, 60 lb | Adult, 200 lb | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16″ | 0.018″ | 0.060″ | the north run |
| 20″ | 0.035″ | 0.118″ | the west run |
| 24″ | 0.061″ | 0.204″ | acceptable |
| 26″ | 0.078″ | 0.259″ | springy under an adult |
It will not break — plywood bends a long way past this — but over about a quarter inch it just feels bad. Five legs on the west run gives 19.6″; four on the north gives 16″. Four on the west lands at 26″, which is the one to avoid. So: nine legs.
The legs are the only piece anyone looks at
The ledger is hidden behind the seat and under the wall line, so the legs carry the entire visual load — and at nine of them you will be looking at whatever you pick a great deal.
What actually changes the read is the section, not the species. A 1½ × 3½ rectangle looks like framing whatever it is milled from. Square, round or slab does not. So:
First pick — a 2×2, tapered. A 1½″ square post reads as furniture immediately, and it disappears, which is what you want under a bench you are trying to sweep beneath. Then taper it — 1½″ at the top down to 1″ at the floor, two minutes with the jigsaw. That single cut is the highest-leverage move on the whole bench and it is free. Set each one back 1″ from the seat’s front edge so it sits in shadow and the bench reads as floating.
Second — a 1×6 slab, as you suggested: a 5½″ plank leg reads as a little plinth rather than a stick. Honest and solid-looking, but it blocks more of the underside, so it is the wrong way round for the cleaning goal.
Or buy the answer. Ready-made tapered furniture legs are $12–18 each — at nine that is real money, so this is the case for cutting your own from a 2×2. A 1″ black pipe with a floor flange goes the other direction and works too.
You already sit there. That is the same class of evidence as “the 12″ stools are working,” and it has beaten my arithmetic twice now. Build it. On the table you have now it is a perch; on v2 the curve reaches 4–5¾″ over the seat and it becomes a real place at the table. Either way it is the one seat here with a proper back.
It is 40 minutes and it costs nothing
A 25″ counter is 12″ of shared corner plus 13″ of new seat — which is why it feels like so little to add. And it comes off the strip you are already cutting: 48″ north plus 25″ wrap is 73″ of a 96″ strip, so both spare strips stay whole and the hole-saw practice is untouched.
Nothing goes into the cabinet. Two legs at the outboard corners, and the inboard end screws to the west bench’s frame. No lags into a finished end panel, no holes in someone else’s cabinetry, and the whole run lifts out if it turns out to be in the way.
The reason it feels natural: the counter is a backrest
Seat at 17¼″, counter at 36″ — 18¾″ of solid vertical behind your shoulder blades. That is the only seat in this nook with a real back, and you did not have to build it. It is also why the counter itself is useless as a table from down there: a work surface wants 11–12″ above the seat, and 18¾″ is shoulder height. Lean on it, eat off the bean.
| The wrap | |
|---|---|
| New seat past the corner | 13″ |
| Perimeter seating | 126½″ → 139½″, +10% |
| Extra plywood | none — comes off the north strip |
| Extra 2×4 | 25″ of skirt, two 16½″ legs |
| Front-edge span | 13″, 0.03″ under an adult |
| Time | 40 min |
| Table edge over the seat | v1 ±0″ — a perch; v2 +4 to +5¾″ |
The stiffness line is worth reading twice: a 13″ span is four times stiffer than the west run’s 19.6″ bays. The wrap will be the most solid-feeling part of the whole bench, which is a nice thing for the seat someone perches on.
Both unknowns came back clean
The 25″ of cabinet face is a finished end panel — no doors, no drawers, no dishwasher, nothing the bench can block. The wrap costs you no access at all, which is the answer that makes it free. And the gap it narrows is not the route to the benches, so there is nothing left to check.
Build it on two legs at the outboard corners anyway, tied to the west run’s frame — not as a hedge now, but because an end panel is usually 1/2″ ply on a light frame and is not something to hang a bench off. It also means the wrap lifts out in one piece if you ever want that cabinet clear.
The best part: you do not have to decide this weekend
The wrap butts onto the west run and changes nothing about it. Build the L, sit in it, and add 25″ any Saturday after — there is no rework, because the west run ends where it ends either way.
One thing to actually do now, though: when the store rips the sheet, have them crosscut 25″ off the north strip too, or at minimum keep the 23″ offcut rather than treating it as scrap. It is the whole wrap.
Two details if you build it
Round the free corner, 3″ radius, jigsaw, before you finish it. A 12″-deep plywood corner at 17¼″ standing in a walkway finds shins, and a curve is the language the rest of this nook already speaks. The 12″ end edge is exposed too — ease and poly it the same as the front.
No holes in the wrap. There is no radiator behind the counter, so they would vent nothing, and with the backs dropped there are no pegs to harvest either. A hole line that stops at the corner reads fine — the two runs it serves are the ones with radiator under them.
With the seat hard to the wall, the 157 sq in slot is gone and these holes carry the whole job. They stopped being decoration the moment the gap closed. The good news is the arithmetic still works comfortably, and the ledger change makes them easier to drill than they were going to be.
30 holes at 2½″, on a line 3¼″ off the wall
A baseboard’s own outlet is roughly 1–1.5 sq in per inch of length, so over 120″ of radiator you are trying to match 120–180 sq in.
| Hole | 30 at 4″ centres | Against the target | Web between |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2″ | 94 sq in | 52–78% | 2″ |
| 2½″ | 147 sq in | 82–123% | 1½″ |
A 2″ saw does not get there any more. It was marginal when the slot was doing most of the work; without the slot it is short at every assumption. Same 30 plunges either way — buy the 2½″.
Where the 30 go
The radiator is an L: 60″ down the west wall and 60″ along the north, and the bench covers all of it. 15 along the west run, 12 along the north, and 3 across the west bench’s north end — that corner square sits over the north wall’s first 12″ of radiator, so those three run crossways, not with the others.
The west bench’s last 18½″ has no radiator under it and needs no holes. Four more would carry the line to the end if a line that stops bothers you; they vent nothing.
Drilling is now a plain job through 3/4″ of plywood
The ledger’s front edge is 1½″ off the wall; a 2½″ hole on a 3¼″ centreline has its near edge at 2″, so it clears by half an inch and never touches wood you care about. No socket rail, no second 2×4, nothing to align.
The hole does not have to sit directly over the grille — the space under the seat is a plenum, and air that rises off the fins will find the nearest opening an inch away. Measure the radiator’s projection anyway; if it reaches past 4½″ from the wall, move the line forward to suit.
Easiest before the seat goes down, flat on sawhorses. If you defer them, it is six screws out and the strip lifts off — but do not defer them past the first cold week, because until they exist the radiator is venting sideways under a seat instead of upward into the room.
Back the ply with scrap so the underside doesn’t blow out, clear the plug every hole, and roll sandpaper into a tube and ease every rim. Then two coats of poly into each bore — they are end grain and thirsty.
Things will fall through them, onto a radiator
A 2½″ hole swallows a crayon, a fork, a small toy, and what is under there is hot. Worth deciding in advance rather than discovering it.
The cheap fix is aluminium insect screen stapled to the underside along the hole line — about $8 and ten minutes. It costs you roughly a third of the airflow, which is exactly why the 2½″ holes matter: screened, they still land where unscreened 2″ holes would. Build it bare, live with it a week, add the screen if the kids make the case.
The crook is the right place and it is the only right place: it is dead seating space, and it is the far side of the pedestal from the edge people lean on, which is exactly where a tie does the most work. But shift, rotation and wobble are three different faults with different causes, and two of them have a five-dollar fix you can do tonight.
Ten seconds with a hand on the table tells you which you have
Push it sideways and watch the base. If the base slides with the top, nothing is loose — the whole table is skating on the tile, and that is a pad problem, not a joinery one.
If the top moves and the base stays put, the flange screws are too few or not tight. Count them: three or four is common on an old pedestal and is not enough for a top this size.
If it rocks diagonally with the base still, the top is not seated flat on the flange — the puck or the flange is bearing on three points rather than four.
If the base itself rocks on the floor, its feet are not coplanar on your tile. Also grab the column and twist: the column-to-base joint on an old pedestal loosens, and a quarter turn on that bolt can be the whole story.
What you can fix tonight, before any of the rest of this
Rubber pads, not felt. Felt is designed to let furniture slide, which is precisely your complaint. Self-adhesive rubber or silicone pads under each foot, a few dollars, and on tile the difference is not subtle.
More screws through the flange. Go to six or eight around it rather than three. Same rule as before — flange thickness plus washer plus no more than 5/8″ into the wood, and measure before you drive. The puck gives you the depth to do this safely.
Shim the rocking foot with a stack of playing cards until it stops, then a plastic shim trimmed flush. Wrench the column bolts while you are under there.
Between them these should take out the shift and most of the wobble. What they cannot fix is the tipping, because that is geometry.
The real fix: one block in the crook, and the table stops being furniture
A short post between the bench seat and the underside of the tabletop, screwed at both ends. That is the whole thing, and it does all three jobs at once because it turns a one-point support into a two-point one about 21″ apart.
Shift: gone — the table is now attached to a bench that is lagged into studs. Rotation: gone — two points 21″ apart cannot rotate about the column. Wobble and tipping: gone, and this is the part worth dwelling on. Rocking on the pedestal requires the crook corner to rise, and screws hold it down.
The screw trap, which is the same one as the flange
The tabletop is 3/4″ and the good side is up. A 1¼″ screw into it from below comes out on top of your dinner. Two ways not to do that:
Glue a cleat — a 4½″ square of 3/4″ ply, glued to the underside with wood glue and clamped or weighted overnight. No fasteners into the top at all, and afterwards you have 1½″ of wood to screw into. This is the one to do.
Or 5/8″ screws straight up, measured against a scrap first. It holds fine — four #8s at that depth in plywood is on the order of 375 lb in withdrawal against a tie load in the tens — but there is no margin for a screw that is a size longer than you thought.
The bottom end is easy: 1¼″ screws down through the seat into the block, or up through the seat from below if you would rather not see the heads.
What it does to the number I flagged before you mounted it
Unanchored, roughly 23 lb on the far tip lifts the base. That is the tipping figure from before the mount, it has not changed, and it is why the table rocks when someone leans: a kid’s elbow is more than 23 lb.
With the block, lifting the far tip means pulling four screws out of a glued cleat. The failure mode goes from “tips at 23 lb” to “does not tip”, and the lever is generous — the block sits about 21″ from the pedestal, the far tip about 36″ the other side, so the tie carries roughly what the load is rather than a multiple of it.
Why this waits, and why that is fine
The block’s height is the table underside minus the seat top, and its position is under the table’s crook corner — both unknown until the benches exist and the table is where it is going to live. It is a thirty-minute job once they do.
So: pads and screws tonight, block after the benches. And it is one more argument for the order you already picked — the anchor is a bench part, and it cannot be designed before the bench it stands on.
Two outlets land under the bench. The useful realisation is that you have already drilled the cable holes — that is what the vent line is, once you look at it right.
The vent holes are the cable pass-throughs. Don’t drill new ones.
They sit on a 3¼″ line, at the very back of a 12″ seat — behind everyone, not under them. They are 2½″, so a USB-C plug drops through with room to spare. They are already eased and finished. And the hole swallows the slack: push the spare cable back down when nobody is using it and the seat is clear again.
A grommet in the seat top would put a hard rim where someone sits, and a new hole would need a 2⅜″ saw you do not own. Use the two nearest the outlets and be done.
Do not leave a charging brick in the cavity over the radiator
That space runs perhaps 100–120°F when the heat is on, and most USB bricks are rated to about 104°F ambient. It is not a fire story — it is derating, throttled charging and a short life, in the one place you cannot see it fail.
Two ways out, and both are better than a brick anyway:
Swap the receptacle for a USB one. A tamper-resistant 15A outlet with USB-C built in drops into the existing box, $25–35, breaker off. In-wall rated, nothing loose in the cavity, and TR matters here with a four-year-old sitting a foot away. This is the tidy answer.
Or put the brick where it is cool. The west run’s last 18½″ has no radiator under it and neither does the counter wrap. If either outlet is in one of those stretches, a brick there is fine; run the cable inside the cavity to the nearest hole.
Three details worth ten minutes
Clip the cable up off the radiator. Two adhesive clips inside the cavity keep it from sagging onto a hot fin. Same for anything you leave plugged in down there.
Six-foot cables. Long enough to reach a laptop anywhere on the table from either run, short enough that the surplus goes back down the hole rather than round your ankles.
Leave those two holes unscreened. If you staple insect screen under the hole line to stop crayons landing on the radiator, cut around the cable holes — and remember the seat still lifts off on six screws, so an outlet under it stays serviceable rather than entombed.
Notching the ledger — you are fine
You said not to plan it, so this is just reassurance: the ledger is a cleat, not a beam. It is lagged into every stud it crosses and the seat carries its load straight into the wall, so a notch between two studs costs essentially nothing.
Two rules and it stays that way: notch the bottom edge, never the top — the top 3/4″ is the bearing surface the seat actually sits on — and put a screw into the stud each side of the notch rather than spanning past it.
Real problem, and the bench makes it worse: your sill is at 20½″ and the seat will be at 17¼″, so you are building a 3¼″ step to a lookout, the full length of the room, with a handrail-height view out of it. They will be up there constantly.
The pigeon-spike family does not work on children
Bumps, mats, spike strips, sticky domes — all of it fails here for the same two reasons. Anything uncomfortable enough to deter a determined five-year-old is close to being a hazard, and anything that is stuck on gets picked off, usually by the child it was aimed at. Pigeons do not treat deterrents as a puzzle.
What does work on pigeons and also works on kids is the geometry, not the surface: take away the flat, and there is nothing to grip, nothing to remove and nothing to argue about.
A board run from the back of the seat up to the glass turns the ledge into a ramp. Nothing to perch on, no sightline lost, and it closes the crumb gap behind the bench as a bonus. Whether it works is entirely a function of your sill depth, because the rise is fixed at 3¼″:
| Sill depth | Ramp angle | |
|---|---|---|
| 3″ | 47° | unsittable |
| 4″ | 39° | works |
| 5″ | 33° | a comfy wedge — they will still perch |
| 6″ | 28° | you have built them a lounger |
| 8″ | 22° | no deterrent at all |
Measure the sill depth before anything else. 4″ or under and the ramp is the whole answer for the cost of one board. Over 5″ and it is worse than nothing, because you will have spent an afternoon making the perch more comfortable. Also check the window crank clearance — those are casements, and a ramp that fouls the handle is a ramp you take back off.
If the sill is too deep to slope, put something between them and it. Not a solid back — a top rail with vertical spindles. It is visually almost free, and the number is better than it sounds:
Rail at 28¼″, spindles at 4″ centres
That is 11″ above the seat, so it occupies the glass from the sill up to 28¼″ — a band 7¾″ tall. Over the 78½″ run that is 20 spindles plus the rail, about 7% of the glass on a 40″ window, 6% on a 50″ one.
And all of it sits in the bottom 8 inches. A seated adult’s eye is around 46″, so the entire band is below everyone’s sightline — it is the zone the kids’ own backs occupy when they are sitting properly, which is the point.
4″ centres is not arbitrary: it is the guardrail sphere rule, the spacing that has actually been tested against children rather than guessed at. Use it and a head cannot go through.
The honest trade: the ramp removes the perch and keeps the view; the spindles keep the perch but block the route to it. The ramp is better if your sill lets you have it, because the thing they actually want is to look out of the window, and taking that away tends to relocate the problem rather than solve it. Measure first.
You want spill protection without the colour the table got. That is one decision, and it is not the sheen or the brand.
Oil-based poly would give you exactly the thing you hate
Every oil-based polyurethane goes on honey-coloured and keeps yellowing for years. It is the same amber cast as the shellac, except it deepens instead of staying put. The word on the can that matters is not satin or clear — both kinds say clear — it is water-based.
Water-based poly — milky in the can, colourless on the wood
Minwax Polycrylic or Varathane Water-Based Polyurethane, satin. Both are on the shelf at Home Depot, both go on looking like skim milk and dry to nothing. The plywood stays the exact colour it is right now.
Buy a synthetic brush with it. Natural bristle absorbs water and goes limp in waterborne finish — a $9 poly brush, or a foam brush, both work.
| Water-based | Oil-based | |
|---|---|---|
| Colour on light ply | none, stays as-is | amber, and deepens |
| Recoat | 2 hr | 24 hr |
| Three coats takes | one day | three days |
| Smell | mild, do it indoors | garage only |
| Clean-up | water | mineral spirits |
| Raises the grain | yes, on coat 1 only | no |
| Hot bowl | marks near 180°F | a little tougher |
The only column oil wins is heat, and nobody puts a hot bowl on a bench. Take the water-based one.
Finish the boards before they go on the wall
Flat on sawhorses, both faces and all four edges. Sealing the underside is not fussiness — a panel finished on one side takes on moisture unevenly and cups, and this one is screwed down at the back edge only.
Sawn plywood edges drink about three times what the faces do. Hit them, move on, and come back for a second pass while the first is still wet. A starved edge is where a spill gets in.
The three coats
Coat 1 will feel fuzzy when it dries. That is the water swelling the grain, it happens once, and it is not a mistake. Knock it back with your 200 sponge, very light — you are shaving whiskers, not sanding. Wipe with a dry microfibre; no alcohol, no water.
Coats 2 and 3 need only a scuff, and honestly barely that at a 2-hour recoat. Thin coats, long strokes along the length, do not go back into a patch that has started to set — waterborne finish drags where oil would flow, and the fix is to leave it and let coat 3 bury it.
Three coats on the top face, two is plenty underneath. Do not chase a perfect coat 1; it is meant to look splotchy.
Sit on it tomorrow, do not scrub it for a week
Dry to touch in 30 minutes, recoat at 2 hours, usable the next day. But waterborne poly reaches full hardness at about day 7 — until then a wet cloth left sitting can print it. Wipe spills, do not scour.
Not below 50°F. If the garage is cold it will go milky and stay milky, and there is no fixing that but stripping it.
And when you drill the vent holes
Back out the screws, cut the 30 holes, then run a foam brush round every bore — two coats, they are end grain and thirsty. Two minutes a hole is not the job; forgetting them is, because a raw bore under a seat is exactly where a spill goes.
Do not put this on the table
The bean is finished in Bulls Eye Amber, which is a waxed shellac, and waterborne poly will not grip wax. It would look fine for a week and then peel off in sheets at the first knock. Making the table heat-proof is a different job with a different first step — a dewaxed barrier coat — and it is a v2 conversation, not a Saturday one.
This is the part that has to be right
The ledger carries the whole back of the bench and everyone on it. Find the studs — buy the finder, don’t guess — and put two 3½″ structural screws into every stud you cross, which at 16″ centres is five or six on the long run. Through 1/2″ drywall and a 1½″ ledger, 3½″ leaves 1½″ in the stud.
Mount both ledgers first, and get them level along their length — the seat copies whatever the ledger does. At that point it is a bare 2×4 on a wall and you can see and reach everything; once the seat is on, those screws sit behind a 14½″ overhang.
Don’t improvise a screw low near the radiator. Its supply pipes run in the wall or floor nearby and you cannot see them. At 13–17″ up you are well clear, which is where the ledger lands anyway.
| Qty | Item | Note | $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3/4″ sanded ply, 4×8 | same as the table — four 12″ rips, along the 8′ length | 65 |
| 4 | 2×4 × 8′ | two for the ledgers, two for legs if you use 2×4 | 16 |
| 1 | 2×2 × 8′ or two bought legs | the only part on show. Taper it | 6 |
| 1 | 2½″ hole saw + arbor | same 30 plunges as a 2″, 56% more air — and the slot is gone | 20 |
| 1 | Stud finder | the ledger is the whole back of the bench | 25 |
| 1 | 3½″ structural screws | ledger into studs | 12 |
| 1 | 2½″ construction screws | legs | 10 |
| 1 | 1⅝″ screws | seat down onto the ledger and legs | 8 |
| 1 | Water-based poly, qt | Polycrylic or Varathane — water-based, so it dries clear, not amber | 22 |
| 1 | 2″ synthetic brush | a natural-bristle brush goes limp in waterborne finish | 9 |
| — | Sandpaper | you have it | 0 |
About $183, and roughly $45 of that is a hole saw and a stud finder you keep. Two whole plywood strips are spare — a good place to be when you only get one sheet, and where the hole-saw practice happens.
| Time | Mins | |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | Home Depot — four 12″ rips on the panel saw while you gather the rest | 45 |
| 0:45 | Measure both runs, mark studs, settle the corner | 20 |
| 1:05 | Crosscut the two seats, cut the two ledgers, cut and taper nine legs | 40 |
| 1:40 | Mark the 3¼″ line and drill the 30 vent holes | 45 |
| 2:25 | Sand seats, ease the edges and all 30 hole rims | 45 |
| 3:10 | Ledgers onto the wall, both runs | 40 |
| 3:50 | Seats down onto the ledgers, then fit and screw the nine legs | 50 |
| 4:40 | Sit on them. Eat dinner off them | — |
Finishing is the second session. Two coats with 45 minutes between is another two hours and there is no reason it happens the same day — bare ply is fine for a week, and by then you will know whether the depth and height are right. Sit on them before you finish them: a bench you have to unscrew is much cheaper to fix while it is still bare.
The two things most likely to bite
Seat height is the one you cannot fudge later. Cut one leg, stand it under a seat offcut beside the table, and sit on it before you cut the other eight. Thigh clearance is comfortable, ten is tight, twelve feels like a bar stool.
The corner is where the two runs argue. Get both ledgers up before committing to either seat length, so the second seat is measured off the first one actually in place rather than off a drawing.
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.