X Sofa Table Tutorial

I didn't know what better name to name this sofa table :) X Sofa Table seemed appropriate. Although, if you look at it from other angles, it's more like an oblong X, but same dif. lol
So, I obviously love making furniture. But, there's only so many things I can make and so many places to put them in my house. I have more than enough sofa tables right now :) But I wanted to make this one really bad. So...luckily, I can decorate my mom's house with the furniture that doesn't fit in my house lol. And...even more luckily. Mother's day was coming up, and my mom just happened to need a new sofa table :) Which was a good thing, because I really liked the way this looked behind my couch and was contemplating keeping it even though I really like my current sofa table too. It would look silly having two sofa tables in one spot ;)

This project is so super easy to do. It's a great one for beginners. Here's the supply list:
2 1x10 or 1x12 pine boards (depending on how wide you want it)
2 1x6 cedar planks
2 brackets
Drill/Screws
Hammer/nails
Wood glue
Stain
Polyurethane



Step 1: Cut your pine boards to size. For mine, the top piece was 54" and the two legs were 28"

Step 2: Grab your bracket and screw into the shorter edge of one of the legs. Make sure that the end of the bracket is flush with the edge of the wood.

 Step 3: Now put the top piece on the ground, and place the leg piece and bracket on top of it. Make sure the outside of the leg is flush with the edge of the top piece. Screw the bracket into the top piece.

 Step 4: Do Step 2 and 3 above with the other leg.

Step 5: Grab your cedar boards and place them along your table. Make sure the bottom corner of the board is lined up with the bottom corner of the leg, and the top corner is lined up with the top corner where the leg and top meet. Get underneath the plank and mark the angle. My angle was 22.5 degrees. Cut both sides of the board at this angle. I'm not a math genius, but I think this angle might change depending on the height and length you make the table.

 Step 6: Now place a line of wood glue along the pine board and place the cedar plank on top. Then secure with some nails.

Step 7: Repeat Step 5 and 6 on the other side with the second cedar plank.

Step 8: Stain or paint. I finished mine with a dark walnut stain.

 I wanted to add a little character and distress this a bit. But how do you distress something that is already so dark? Well, I figure, I should take the opposite approach of distressing something white to brown. So I distressed this to white. I used a little stamp pad thing that you can get from the scrapbooking department.

 Step 9: Seal it up! Use Polyurethane if you stained it, or Polyacrylic if you painted it.

 The hubs thought this look was weird. But I really like the contrast of the white and brown. Really, it added just enough to make this piece pop.

 To tie in the white distress marks, I put all white accessories on top. I love how this looks. Now can you see why I would want to keep this for myself? It really made me start to rethink all the furniture in my living room. lol. So much, that I think I may end up making some new side tables in this same look. I'm not sure though...I really like my current side tables ... :) We'll see.

 Plus, I like how this tied in the side tables with the brown. I just love the contrast of brown wood on white decor. ...I contemplated painting this a mustard yellow to match my mom's house. I even bought the paint. But....truthfully...I was lazy and didn't want to paint. It takes so much longer to paint then stain. So, I went the lazy route and stained...obviously :) Now I have some cute yellow paint to use on something else though :)

Was this not the easiest project ever? You don't even need a saw for this. If you are going to Home Depot or Lowes anyways to get the wood, you might as well just have them cut the pine boards, and then you can head over to the molding department and use their miter box and hand saw the cedar planks.

And these brackets? You can find them usually on an aisle by the wood or flashing. At least that's where they are at the stores by me.

Total cost for this project if you need buy everything is about $20! (approx. $6 per 1x10 board,  $2 per cedar plank, and $2 per bracket).

Happy building everyone!

linked to: my repurposed life