A Custom-Made Table for Dummies

One way to secure table legs

In the bad old days of eHow.com, many a freelancer with a computer (and some without one) pounded out how-to instructions on topics that they'd either never heard of before or never attempted on their own. As a result, there are buttloads of instruction sets that make little or no sense or, if followed, would create something so inferior that you would be ashamed to have it in your home. We figure that today's nominee falls in that latter category. It's "How to Make Your Own Table," an eHow concoction by Katherine Kally that now lives at HomeSteady.com.

Kally, who originally posted this one under the name "R. Lindley," came to furniture-making from a psychology background; which still doesn't excuse her for not having had the slightest idea how to do the task she was writing about. Kally fell back on several time-honored traditions of the eHow freelancer who knows nothing about carpentry, including

1. Claiming that your local lumber yard will cut everything to size for you
2. Specifying lumber in sizes that are ridiculously large
3. Suggesting that furniture-makers buy ready-made table legs
4. Instructing readers to assemble furniture using "L-brackets."

We aren't sure who the first eHowian was that put together furniture instructions with such dumbassery, but whoever it is deserves a year's worth of DotD awards. Here's why we say that:

1. Most lumberyards will not cut stock, especially hardwoods. If they will cut it, you can be certain that the cost will be quite dear...
2. Kally's supplies list included a "6' x 4' x 2" Wood panel": where on earth are you going to find one of those?
3. Sure you can buy "Decorative table legs," but are you prepared to pay the price? And what size should they be? What species of wood? What design?
4. This is the worst. Katherine said, "If the table legs do not have built-in screws in the center of the leg top, then secure them to the underside of the table with one screw on each side of the leg. Insert the screws at an angle through the leg, and then into the table top." Did this moron have any idea how quickly such a kluge would collapse?

As if that's not enough, Kally wanted the table to rest on a "brace" – more properly, an apron – that is assembled by screwing boards together with L-brackets.

We didn't even get into KK's lack of knowledge of lumber dimensions or her failure to understand grades of sandpaper. Suffice it to say that the table our Dumbass of the Day designed might be sturdy enough to support her award... but it would be more likely to collapse under its own weight!

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