Table Making

Yesterday we had a small dinner with a few friends. Which brought up the frequent problem of not having enough furniture. We decided to make a makeshift table for the evening to eat of. The idea was to go very simple - take a plank, stick a few bricks under it and wallah - a table. So we went down to the hardware store to get a piece of wood. While we were down there the plan gradually changed from the original simple idea of stacking a piece of wood onto bricks to building a sturdy, although simple, coffee table.



We picked up a piece of pine, got the hardware store to cut support planks and legs into the right sizes and a few accessories. The most notable of which was a cordless drill. A must have for the project.

The project turned out quite well. It was my first solo DIY effort so a few mistakes were made and some lessons were learned, but all in all the end result is very pleasing.

The design was simple - the table top, four support beams running in a rectangle 5cm in from the edge of the table and the legs nestled in the corners of the support beam. I glued the support beams and added L-brackets. I then glued in the legs, also using L-brackets to secure them to the table top, and half-threaded screws to secure them against the support beams.

I under-estimated the number of screws required, and one of the half threaded screws broke halfway in. Also some of the pilot holes I drilled didn't line up correctly after gluing. Next time I won't drill all the pilot holes first.

That said, the end result is a sturdy table that did not fall apart the first time it was turned over.



Here are a few shots taken during and after the construction of the table.