I want a dining table with a cubby -- like a school desk

Something like this? They definitely make them. You might be able to find a woodworking hobbyist in your area that makes custom furniture. I would try a local woodworking club.

It's a very traditional approach to the dining/kitchen table.

Gotta have a place to keep your napkin and spoon from week to week.

i've seen some antique tables like that, saw one once that had a rectangular central box like structure under the table, maybe a foot wide by 3 feet long, it went almost to the floor and had short support legs (the real table legs were on the corners of the table), it was divided into two cabinets, one on each end, with doors, the whole table was about 3 feet by 6 feet, hard to describe it properly

Kind of like that. I want the entire bottom to be a cubby.

Even with a hobbist I imagine having it made would be pretty expensive. I understand making a table is pretty complicated.

Do you know what they're called?

Would you have to crawl under the table to make use of the cabinet?

That's really a great idea for extra storage.

I just need a shelf but now you've got me thinking about other ideas too!

the piece in the middle had a divider so each cabinet was about a foot and half deep, if i remember, one end had shelves, the other was an open space, you kind of had to bend down to access, an o guess if you shoved stuff to far in you'd have to climb under to really get it

I don't think it's specific to a style of table. If you watch programs like Antique Roadshow, there are drawers and cubbies/shelves in many styles of tables.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5510328_identify-antique-tables.html

here's a modern unfinished one with a longish drawer

http://www.unfinishedfurnitureexpo.com/unfinished-square-dining-table-drawer-wt312-321.html

this is a variant I don't recall seeing before

a drawer at sort of footstool level (at Kmart!) under the table

http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_021V003492385000P?vName=For%20the%20Home&cName=Dining&sName=Chairs&sid=KDx20091125x00001&srccode=cii_9324560&cpncode=23-135083578-2

That sounds petty cool! It would make a great space saver if it were to be on casters and have drop leaves!

That's getting close to what I have in mind. But I want a cubby instead of a drawer.

I want an open cubby like this:



but the size of a dining table with cubbies open all the way around the table. (And made out of nice wood.)

now this is a very expensive version, but it is lovely

http://www.davidlinleyfurniture.com/helix-dining-table



then there is the Pembroke table, a folding table with drawers at the ends. folded up it seats two, opened it can seat from 4 - 10 , depending on how many leaves you've got for it.

I think a usable table with cubbies all the way round would get expensive because of the structural difficulties that would have to be overcome - I don't think it could be done nicely on a dining table - more of a kitchen table size would work though. Also - cleaning of the cubbies would be a bugger

I googled "folding dinner table that doubles as a desk", and got some interesting hits, including this one
http://dornob.com/eating-at-work-transforming-dining-room-desk-table/

I'd googled some variant of that and got a craft desk/table that featured a sort of thin table-height cabinet with drawers on casters in the middle and then tabletops hinged to it on either side that could fold out as tabletops/work surfaces on either side.

You might also consider rolling cabinets/file cabinets, etc. that can fit under whatever table you have and can be rolled out of the way somewhere else when you want to use the table as purely a table. There was an often-brightly-colored plastic one called I think a "Boby" by an Italian designer that was kind of a style icon of the 60s and 70s. An old girlfriend and I once found one in pretty fair shape that had been thrown out as trash by someone who lived one street over from me. It never made it to the trash pick up. I think some art supply stores sell them still.

not cubbies, but not closed in storage either (which is more common than I'd realized - looks like a current design trend)

I have a table almost exactly like that Pembroke table! They're pretty handy.

Ah, here we go, the boby by Joe Columbo, comes in at least red, white, or black, maybe blue, and a lot of drawer and tray variants

Search on "dining room table with drawers" and you will get a lot of hits.

Did you look at the Linley Helix table I linked to - I love how some drawers are just drawers and some have dividers. Wildly gorgeous wood and wildly expensive (more than most cars in this neighbourhood).