Table extension ideas?

[cobrageek]

We have the standard forest river dinette table with the folding legs that squat down between the benches (2011). I have a family of 5 and we often have friends in and would like to have more table space for games and such. Our floorplan (23RS) has a couch across from the dinette so a 1 or 1.5 foot extension would be perfect to add some room for games and meals and we could use the couch for seating around the extended table.

I considered those "fold down" extensions where we could just pop it up into place, but I'm not sure the table could fold down sufficiently and I'm sure people sitting at the dinette would be able to get out with it down.

In brainstorming I was wondering if I could mount something like drawer runners underneath the edges of the existing table which would slide fully under the normal table when not in use. But then could slide out into the isle and set some other board into place and lock it on with some kind of latch. I think some good quality kitchen drawer slides would be strong enough and I could create some way to lock the board into place and then store the board somewhere else when not in use.

Any other cool ideas for this? I've tried to think of things that would fold underneath the existing table, but the way the big folding leg mechanism works it wouldn't allow anything to fold into the middle (big brackets and legs in the way).

[cobrageek]

After brainstorming for a long time and taking a bunch of measurements I have a plan. I decided to just extend the table by 12". More would be nice in certain circumstances, but it would need to be about 24" in order to use the couch as mealtime seating and anything between 12 and 24 would make it such that you couldn't use our normal "stool in the isle" mealtime seating.

I had a section of 12" wide shelf board that's 3/4" thick to match the existing table and cut a length that matched the width of the existing table. I rounded the corners and edges to match the shape of the table and will be giving it a nice finish.

For supports I ordered these: Metal Drop Leaf Supports, Pair - Cabinet And Furniture Door Catches - Amazon.com The plan is to mount them under the sides of the existing table so they can pull out and be the main support for the extension. But when not in use they can be pushed under the existing table and hopefully not be in the way or bang knees.

To lock the extension in place I ordered these: 2 Pcs Black Metal 3" Long Door Lock Sliding Barrel Bolt Black - - Amazon.com The idea is to drill a hole in the inside of the supports and then mount these on the underside of the extension so that when in place I can slide the bars into the holes in the supports and the bar will hold the extension in place on the supports.

How sturdy this ends up depends greatly on the quality of these supports and I may have to do some tweaking once I get them in the mail. I'll take pictures after getting it rigged up and report back on how well it seemed to work. The hope is for a stable extension to the table that when removed won't get in the way of it's existing function.