Thread: Cheap coffe table

I made this coffee table with the cheap pine that Bunnings sell. I think its around $2-50 for a 2.4 meter length. I made the sides to drop down so we could store all the picture albums and magazines lying around the house. Its very heavy construction. I needed something that would take a lot of hard use. The main reason for making it myself was the size. The room where this is situated is about 20 feet long and 14 ft wide so it needed to be quite larger so as not to look out of place.
I couldnt get black hinges or handles at the time, only silver ones and I needed them quickly so I actually put them in the open fire and created the black look that you see in the picture.



I didnt want it to look too plain so I routed 45deg grooves in the boards before joining them together, staggering them to give the brick effect. It was finished with a stain that I made up from odds and ends I had lying around, so dont ask me what colour it is.
I gave it 2 coats of estapol clear and that was it.
Cheap to make and quick. Only thing you got to watch when selecting the pine pieces is trying to find some straight lengths. some of the pieces that Bunnings have would only be suitable for making boomerangs.


I didnt work to any plan just made it as I went along. Didnt turn out too bad. We had only just moved up to Queensland and into a larger house than we had in Sydney and we needed some furniture pronto.