the Coffee Table

Ahhh! Nothing like sitting down first thing in the morning to enjoy your fresh cup of coffee on a table you just finished building. The feeling of pride!

When we first moved into this house, my wife’s parents gave us an old, heavy, clunky wooden coffee table with three glass inserts. I still have nightmares about it. Cups clanking on the glass, the slight wobble that always came back and the feeling of Catholic mass somehow embedded into the tables vibes. Surely, I was grateful to have one less expense when moving to our new home, but it was on my priority list of home DIY projects.

I see basic metal legged furniture all over the place, and I like…but not the price. I decided to take this opportunity to save some money.

So I bought an entry level multiprocess welding machine.

After all of the protective gear (welding helmet, gloves, etc.) and table materials, I miscalculated and went way over budget. Worth it! I say that the money I spent not only bought me a coffee table and welding machine, but also a new skill I can use in all sorts of projects.

I started with a few simple sketches for the shape of the legs, general dimensions from the old table, and a can-do-attitude! The focus of this project was getting to weld stuff, so that’s where I spent most of my time. All I did with the wood was cut two rectangles, top and bottom, stained to my liking and applied 3-4 coats of polyurethane to seal it. With that out of the way, it was time for the fun stuff: cutting weird angles into square tubing and prepping all of the metal for about ten minutes of welding.

There were some tight angles in the design I drew up I hadn’t thought about before diving into the build, but I managed and I think it turned out much better than expected. I would like to do some more projects like these in the future so stay tuned, and reach out if you have any ideas!