An alternative to purchased furniture is the ability to create it yourself from scrap materials. You can make an original coffee table with your own hands in a couple of hours. The process is simple and exciting even for a beginner. Basic skills in handling carpentry tools, ingenuity and a certain amount of aesthetic sense are required.
The benefits of creating your own home furniture:
- minimum financial costs;
- exclusivity of the model;
- individual convenience.
It’s easy to make: even if you need drawings, they’re not at all complicated.
You can place a sample created by yourself in the living room, bedroom or children's room. Products created by yourself look great in city apartments and country cottages, delighting the owners and guests with their unusualness and style.
Content
- What you might need for work
- DIY Pallet Coffee Table
- DIY Coffee Table from Radiator
- DIY Coffee Table from a Window and Books
- Coffee table from the front door
- A table made from old furniture - a wardrobe or chest of drawers
- DIY Tree Stump Table
- A suitcase table for travel lovers
- A log table for nature lovers
- Coils as the basis of the product
- Making a glass table
- The final stage is decoration
- And some more useful tips
- VIDEO: DIY Coffee Table
- 50 DIY Coffee Table Design Photo Ideas
What you might need for work
What materials you will need depends on the base of the item you are assembling. To make a coffee table with your own hands, you will need a variety of auxiliary things.
It will be difficult to assemble a precise and durable table structure without glue, varnish and sandpaper. Durable paint will also come in handy – choose convenient sprays, they can quickly and without getting dirty cover the entire surface of the tabletop. To cover the base and supports, you may need a high-quality primer. You can buy it at a hardware store. Don't forget about decoration materials – fabrics of different textures and densities, lace, colored plastic or glass, etc.
It would not be a bad idea to have some auxiliary materials – regular newspapers, large cardboard, plastic sheeting, so that the “production” waste is not spread around the room.
To assemble the intended model, you need to prepare the necessary tools.
First of all, this is a hammer, scissors, pliers. You will need various fasteners, furniture nails (regular and rivets) or screws of different sizes.
To quickly cut wooden parts, you need a hacksaw. If you have a carpenter's table and have the skills for such work, then having a chisel, cutter and plane will be a plus to process the wooden base with professional precision. To decorate the elements, you will need a sharp cutter or a set of carpenter's knives.
It's up to you to decide what the coffee table will be like. Next, we decide on the design and construction.
DIY Pallet Coffee Table
To quickly make beautiful furniture, wood is often used as a basis. It can be made from an ordinary pallet. One piece without gaps and four wooden supports are enough to independently create a beautiful table.
- We start making an original table from pallets with markings.
- Having decided on the dimensions and made all the necessary marks, we cut out the middle of the pallet: the flat surface should be on the front side, and the relief surface – with symmetrically located bars – on the bottom.
- Treat the legs you have chosen for work (preferably carved ones) with primer and let them dry.
- At this time, work on tinting the tabletop from the top and sides.
- When all the elements are dry, you can start fixing them. Use nails (or screws) and hardware to connect.
DIY Coffee Table from Radiator
Such models look good if they are not tall. An interesting coffee table can be made from an already unnecessary central heating radiator. To do this, it must be painted evenly. Instead of a tabletop, you can take glass or a wide board of the same size.
Wheels from an old baby carriage are often used for mobility. The construction of a furniture masterpiece will take a minimum of time and money.
DIY Coffee Table from a Window and Books
An old window can be given a new use – use it to create a table with your own hands. If necessary, sand the frames and cover them with paint. As supports, you can use not only wooden legs (bars), but also old books that do not fit on the shelves.
A coffee table will be convenient at the dacha if you spend a lot of time there. You can apply a pattern or a thin layer of matting paint to the glass of such an original tabletop.
Coffee table from the front door
An unnecessary front door can also serve as a base for your table. For this, take its central part, and the rest go to the supporting sides, since the coffee table will not be very high. For greater stability, you can make a lower shelf from chipboard.
Cover the surfaces of the product – tabletops and supports – with tinting. Matte varnish will look good.
Often, old doors have relief zoning, which is convenient when using a table, since you can safely put a tray with dishes without fear that it will slip.
A table made from old furniture - a wardrobe or chest of drawers
Sometimes it's a shame to throw away good pieces of furniture that have gone out of fashion. They can serve as the basis for new products. Straight doors from a wardrobe, especially if they are varnished, are a great blank. Legs will also come in handy - straight or carved, if the product is planned to be low. You can use two doors, connecting them with cut parts from the side panels of the wardrobe. This option takes very little time and is practically free.
Drawers from a chest of drawers are suitable for a composite or solid table. The adjustment is made by sawing off the protruding parts. The assembled tabletop is installed on any supports - for example, elements of the same chest of drawers, bars treated with primer, books, etc.
DIY Tree Stump Table
An unusual coffee table is made from a single piece of wood - a stump left over from a cut pine, birch or poplar. It should be wide enough and even, with beautiful rings. Depending on the height of the stump, you can choose from the following options:
- with a low table top on thin metal legs;
- medium height without supports (the base of the stump serves as a support);
- a low table on wheels.
If desired, you can leave the natural appearance of the stump - with bark (leave it as is or cover it with varnish) or paint it in any color, having previously removed the bark. White and beige tones look the best.
A suitcase table for travel lovers
Vintage bulky suitcases can also be used as a tabletop. This original coffee table, made with your own hands, will appeal to romantic natures who often like to spend time on educational trips.
An old suitcase is used as a basis, preferably made of thin wooden planes. Leave the locks in place, they serve as fasteners. You can also leave the straps. The suitcase can be tinted or left in its natural form, depending on the condition of the surface. For the legs, you can use either wooden blocks (or carved furniture supports) or wheels.
For greater resistance of the surface to moisture, you can cover it with varnish. Both bolts and hardware can act as fasteners here. You can drill holes for the legs in the bottom of the suitcase itself and secure them with iron rims with gaskets.
A log table for nature lovers
Wood is a material that is easy to process. Sand half of a wide log and thinner logs. You can leave the bark on the sides and bottom of the tabletop or remove it. Use nails and metal corners for fastening. Instead of log legs, you can use metal legs or legs from old furniture.
Making an exclusive coffee table from wood is quite simple. Ordinary logs will serve as both the base and supports.
Coils as the basis of the product
A coffee table made from a large cable reel looks very interesting. Firstly, the round shape looks harmonious. Secondly, it can be made to rotate. Thirdly, the side cavity can be used for a variety of items – magazines, books, writing utensils, disks, additional utensils (if they are not needed on the table during tea drinking).
Its flat side surfaces will serve as a table top.
The coffee table can be made with or without supports, simply by laying the coil on its side. The "Health" disk can be used as a rotating element.
The cavities on the side look more interesting if they are zoned symmetrically using wooden planks secured with glue.
Making a glass table
A DIY glass coffee table is very easy to make. Regular thick glass (square, rectangular, round) is used as a tabletop, preferably tempered, since the material is quite fragile and can crack from impact or temperature changes.
The coffee table can rest on wooden carved legs with a wide base, books, stumps and other elements. It is advisable to make a central support for it. The elements are attached with special durable glue.
The final stage is decoration
A variety of ideas are used in decorating a hand-made sample. Smooth surfaces hold a pattern or ornament around the perimeter well, while surfaces with uneven textures hold appliques and other elements.
- A tabletop made from a pallet, logs, or stump looks good if it is carved. And a glass tabletop can be laid out from pieces that make up a whole picture (for example, a chessboard) and fastened with durable glue.
- A coffee table made with your own hands will benefit from relief elements. Carving can be applied to the side wooden parts, corners, and the front part. The material with which you can tint part of the carving is paint or varnish.
- Alternatively, you can use a fabric with a small pile for the finishing, covering the sides with it. Material from an old coat that you no longer wear would be ideal. For fastening, use small nails, rivets, or glue on fabric strips.
- You can decorate the table with lace or ribbon with fringe (tassels), covering the base with them along the entire perimeter. Such decoration will imitate a tablecloth. It goes well with knitted lace napkins in a pastoral style.
- The front side of the sample looks unusual if you glue a rough cloth like a mat onto it.
- Twine and coarse hemp rope can serve as excellent finishing materials. They can be used to decorate both the legs and the tabletop. To decorate the supports, apply glue to them and wrap them with twine, trying to make it fit very tightly to the previous rope ring.
- Using glue, colored plastic or artificial glass, you can make unusual mosaic decor. Glue or varnish with a rich color can be used for craquelure.
- If you have unnecessary metal corners without holes, you can also use them as a designer finish. Corner overlays are suitable for joining wooden products of a brutal appearance. The corners are fixed with glue.
A coffee table is a decoration of the living room, and therefore it should be beautiful, elegant or unusual depending on the style, but in any case – made with high quality. 
The tray can be painted or left in its natural state, installed on wheels or small legs, and the tabletop can be made of glass or plywood.
And some more useful tips
When making a table with your own hands, you can use additional decorative inserts. If you take a cable reel as a basis, it often has a central hole. You can put a tall vase with dry plants or flowers in it.
The material you choose for decoration should be wear-resistant, with the exception of elements intended to create the impression of vintage design.
Paint tinting can also act as a decorative design. You can create patterned surfaces, give natural streaks to wooden surfaces, shade parts of elements, creating the most advantageous look for your product.
If the coffee table is unstable, items may slide off it, so you need to carefully adjust all the supports to the height. You can also use a relief finish as an anti-slip measure.
To make such models, absolutely different materials are used - your imagination will not let you limit your ideas. Try, come up with options for furnishings, this will make it look not only stylish, but also completely new.
VIDEO: DIY Coffee Table
50 DIY Coffee Table Design Photo Ideas
