My Perfectly Imperfect DIY Coffee Table

It’s no secret that I lose interest in decor rather quickly, so I often purchase accent furniture inexpensively, or I DIY them.  This was no different when it came to (what I’m calling) my “perfectly imperfect DIY coffee table.”

Shortly after the holidays I listed our round glass coffee table on craigslist for something a little more  . . .eh . . . rustic?  I’m not really sure how much more rustic you can get than a table made of 2×12’s and some screws.

IT wasn’t perfect of course, but it had potential.  I liked the warmth that it added to the space and also the fact that it just didn’t feel polished.

But it was that exact attribute, the unpolished-ness of it, that made me want to make it over.  It was basically unfinished and it looked, well, unfinished, so one day on a whim, I went down to our basement and dug through my scrap wood pile.

How I Built My Perfectly Imperfect Rustic Coffee Table

I grabbed a 4×4 post, some random 8′ furring strips (3), a 1x4x8 and a handful of screws. and started working.  I dismantled my original unfinished rustic table-which took me all of 2 minutes, flipped over the top boards (2x12s) because the top side had gotten a bit warn from being unfinished, so I started fresh. (above you can see that I had already attached 1x4s to act as a sort of mending plate for the top boards.)

I decided that I wanted the height of my table to be 18″, so I cut my 1×4’s to 16″ since the table top boards were 2″ thick.  I then began to line up the 4×4’s at each corner of my table and screwed them in in 3 spots.

Next, I measured and cut my furring strips to fit snugly in between each of the four table legs.

Next, I cut down a piece of 1×4 into little 2-3″ blocks to serve as supports for the aprons.

I nailed these blocks into the underside of the table, every 10″ or so using my nail gun and 1.5″ brad nails.

Using my nail gun, I secured the apron the the little support blocks.

Next, I cut an extra piece of furring strip into 8 triangular pieces to serve as a decorative corner bracket.

I used my nail gun to secure these into the corners.

Here we are at this point.  The bulk of the work was already done!

I flipped it over to check it out, and I liked it, I really liked it!  I roughed it up a bit using my jig saw, taking small slivers out here and there, and banged it with my hammer a few times to give it some dents, I wanted this to look like it was made from old salvaged wood.

I grabbed a sanding sponge and smoothed any ragged spots–no splinters allowed.

And—-because I’m the worst blogger ever, I didn’t document my staining process.  I ended up using a mixture of Minwax Polyshades in Mission Oak and Minwax Gel Stain in Aged Oak.

But here are some pics of the finished product:

What do you guys think?  Is this a type of project you would tackle?  I am just smitten with it 🙂