These days, you see a coffee table in almost every house in the country. They’re a brilliant focus point of a space, both inside and outside. Creating your own coffee table can provide you with both a cheap and charismatic addition to a room or area of your house, and can give you a feature guaranteed not to appear in anyone elses’ home!
Today, we’re creating this inexpensive, wooden coffee table suitable for anywhere around the house. It doesn’t take all that long to create, and the texture and tones provided by the wood make it suitable for almost any household.
Materials
Lacquer
Pallet (size depends on how big you want your coffee table to be!)
8x 2×4
Tools
Wood glue
Wood screws
Step 1: Getting started
Start by trimming the sides and removing the bottom support pieces of your pallet with a jigsaw. To begin creating the design (as shown at the top of the article), cut two pieces down the centre and attach them to the sides to create a frame. As pictured, the design we are going after is a “vanishing” or “infinity” design, where we start with triangles in all four corners until they all meet in the middle.
Step 2: Creating the pattern
As you can see, it doesn’t entirely matter what kind of wood you are using for the design. As you see in the finished product, the different kinds of wood we have used have arguably enhanced the look, but if you’d prefer to remain consistent, that is fine also. Obviously, make sure you take plenty of time to measure and cut the wood so it fits well. Attach them to the frame using wood glue and self drilling wood screws. Tip: if you drill them in from the bottom, it will help to maintain the character of the top side.
Step 3: Building the base
Given your base will need to support all manner of things (sometimes human behinds, if inadvertently), it will need to be sturdy. It is for this reason we used 8x 2x4s, four for the legs and four more for the supports around the outside, for that added strength. To attach the legs to the corners, drill them in using metal corner braces. As shown below, we have also gone ahead and added four pieces to the bottom, just to make sure.
Step 4: Sanding and finishing
In order to get your coffee table smooth and consistent, it is going to require a fair amount of sanding. You are free to do this by hand, but it is highly recommended you use a sander, if you don’t want to spend another day making your coffee table! If you don’t own a sander, just hire one from ToolMates Hire! Good sanders are expensive. Once you are finished sanding, add some lacquer for an even smoother and better looking finish.
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