As it happened, a few weeks ago I needed to make a small coffee table very quickly – and here it is: the less than two hour coffee table!
I needed to make a small surface coffee table to stand between two armchairs, and I used what materials I had lying around: a few pieces of off-cut pine wood, a length of wooden broom handle, and a piece of turned and profiled wood which had probably come from a chair at some point.
It’s important to measure before you start any project, and in this case I really just needed to measure the height of the top surface of the chair arms, so that the table would clear these once completed.
Altogther, the end result is sufficiently rustic and pleasing to the eye, and most importantly, it’s strong, balanced and does the job it was intended for!
I started with the base and built it upwards from there. From the crossed leg base, a pylon extends upwards, mounted in sockets bored into both upper and lower surfaces that join it. Screws make the fitting permanent and firm. The table top is made from an off-cut piece of floor joist, which gives it a nice solid feel. Sanding it all down gave it a neat, uniform finish, ready for varnish or staining, which I plan to do later.
The tools I used included a cordless screwdriver, a drill, hammer, wood chisel, ruler and pencil, a few screws and wood glue.
All in all, this little hasty project took me under 2 hours to finish, by which time it went straight from the workshop to the lounge, where it was immediately used!
Pictures included – enjoy!
Have a DIY day!
Cheers!
All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.