I will have updates from the side tables coming soon, but this was a project I recently talked about with some friends and felt that it’s worth resharing this week.
Now that I have a small table saw that I haven’t yet used, I may make one of these (but a lot nicer) out of solid wood.
Months ago I saw an IKEA table in the free stuff section of craigslist. I like mid-century modern furniture, and from the pictures, this table looked an awful lot like one of those made from solid wood.
I reached out to the person who posted it and headed out to pick it up. She told me she’d put the legs and mounts into one of the drawers so it was ready to go.
When I got there, I grabbed the table and wiped it down before putting it into my car.
A few blocks into my drive home, I realized I’d made a huge mistake. The table reeked of weed. Just so strong. But it also smelled like someone had tried to get rid of the odor. So it smelled like weed and urinal cake. So foul.
I resolved to disassemble the table and leave it in the garage for weeks, and I prayed I wouldn’t get pulled over.
I noticed a few things when I went to take the table apart: First, it was standard IKEA stuff. That is to say that it was not solid wood. Second, while all four legs were in the drawers, there was only one mount of the four. Third, the plastic wood veneer had bubbled and looked super gross. In my rush to get out of there, I had mistaken the plastic veneer for messed-up wood. Nope!
The sane thing to do would be to throw it away. That was an option I felt was valid. And likely.
I decided that in order for me to attempt anything with this table, all of the following criteria had to be met:
- The table would air out fine. I’m not stinking up my home.
- I would be able to figure out a way to make the surface look nice.
- I could find mounts that would work.
- Total resource spend would be kept under $5.
Since there’s a part 2 of this, you know that all four were met. The way I did it is worth reading about next week.
This was for certain the jankiest project I’ve done so far.