Coffee Table

My latest creation - a Pine Coffee Table.

I am quite happy with how this project has turned out as it does actually look like a piece of furniture.

 The whole thing was 'designed' around the Pine (although it looks a bit like Spruce) top which was salvaged from a crappy bolted together IKEA type piece of office furniture that was being thrown away at the local dump. This same piece of furniture also provided the base to my Cutlery Tray - recycling at its finest.

As the top had four dowels and holes already in it, I decided to reuse them and measured the remaining table frame based on their spacing. The frame is made from 50mm x 50mm Pine from the local wood yard.

I decided to try and make the table without any lower bracing and therefore used big 'chunky' Mortise & Tenon joints for maximum rigidity. The tenons were so big, they had to be mitred inside the Mortise and I was quite impressed with myself for cutting quite a complex joint completely by hand using only a brace and chisel.

As mentioned previously, the top is attached using four dowels and the whole thing is glued, there are no screws or nails whatsoever.

I finished the top by sanding and using boiled Linseed oil mixed with turpentine and light rubbing with wire wool in between coats. There are a few marks on the top but it was not possible to plane them out as the wood is really 'knotty'.

The anaemic light coloured pine legs and frame were stained darker to closer match the top but came out quite patchy.  Even with some rubbing of the darker patches with wire wool the finish is not ideal, I'm sure they will look fine once the table has aged a bit - it's 'rustic.

All in all I learn't a great deal building it and enjoyed the process. The cost of the wood is probably less than £10 and actually seeing the finished table that I built with my own hands being used on a daily basis is very satisfying!