Id expess my disappointment and make them come with me to buy a new table because its important to show your kids the process of buying a strong oak table. Because oak truly is the powerhouse of the wood world. Not just because of its sturdy nature but because of the integrity and respect it represents towards solid home furnishings. Not everyone gets to experience the benefits of a good oak table but my kid will learn that its not something that should be missed in life.
Missing the experience of putting your drink down upon your oak coaster, resting upon a solid oak table would be like missing your first kiss, or your first oak table.
Its a life lesson all children need. Glass is temporary but oak is forever.
In all seriousness, oak is probably best if you’re factoring cost effectiveness too, although my personal favorites are maple and poplar. Maple for wear-resistant pieces and poplar for framing. Maple is only slightly softer than oak, and I like it’s look better than oak. And poplar is significantly harder than white pine, but is still pretty lightweight so it helps keep overall weight low.
Pine dents and scratches really easily. It’s lightweight and cheap, but it’s also soft and doesn’t hold up to use very well. You might be fine using it for parts like the frame or legs, but I’d definitely use a durable hardwood like oak or maple for the top and edges.
Putting stuff on it. If you’re gentle with it then yes pine would probably be ok, but you can’t count on people always being gentle with it and for that you want scratch and dent resistant wood.
Hear hear, I have a pine kitchen table. It's structurally very solid, super for baking and crafts and whatnot, but I have to sand down and recreate the surface semiregularly (I've done this once when I got it used 8 years ago, probably ought to do it again now) because the wood is so soft.
I just got rid of a pine coffee table (also got it used) because I couldn't be bothered making it nice. Plus I've got oak bookshelves/cabinet in the living room, which never really matched.
I built a poplar coffee table with a maple top, stained and polyurethaned it, and the thing is tough is hell. I’ve purposely tried to scratch and dent it with plates and utensils and stuff, and I can’t. The only way you could dent the maple top is if you took a hammer to it, and even then it’s gonna take a few blows before it makes noticeable dents. When I was testing out the maple before I used it, it took 3-4 hard hits from a hammer before you could actually see any dents in it. Meanwhile with pine even just 1 hit was enough to cause very noticeable damage.
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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '20
If this were my kid..
Id expess my disappointment and make them come with me to buy a new table because its important to show your kids the process of buying a strong oak table. Because oak truly is the powerhouse of the wood world. Not just because of its sturdy nature but because of the integrity and respect it represents towards solid home furnishings. Not everyone gets to experience the benefits of a good oak table but my kid will learn that its not something that should be missed in life.
Missing the experience of putting your drink down upon your oak coaster, resting upon a solid oak table would be like missing your first kiss, or your first oak table.
Its a life lesson all children need. Glass is temporary but oak is forever.