DIY Farmhouse Coffee Table

Back in Meridian while Rob was on the weapons detachment, I knew that I needed a project to keep me busy.  While Blair and I were in Atlanta, I got a wild hair idea to build a coffee table for our living room.  I've never built furniture before but while we were walking through Ikea, I decided that I could buy a basic, cheap table and then fancy it up to match our style.  How hard could it be, right?!

The project turned out to be a much bigger one than I expected.  I initially thought I would just stain a few boards and use wood glue to adhere them to the table surface however building an actual tabletop turned out to be a much better idea in the long run.  Let's face it, this table is going to have to survive military movers - it had to be sturdy!  Although the workers at Lowe's had very little patience for me, you can truly learn anything on YouTube.  I watched numerous video tutorials on drill pocket holes and the kreg jig is now probably my favorite tool ever!

As for a tutorial, there are much better and more detailed ones out there on the internet than I could ever write.  I'm not great at following directions and since I don't really have carpentry skills, a lot of it was over my head.  That means when it came to this project, I kind of just winged it!  Luckily, it all turned out!

I used the Lack table from Ikea in white because I wanted to keep the legs white.  I built the top to fit the table (no real directions on the building part: I just cut the pieces to fit and drilled pocket holes everywhere to hook everything together!) and then stained it using Minwax Classic Gray and Walnut (letting the stain sit for 10 minutes then wiping with a rag and letting dry between coats).

Considering the price of (albeit gorgeous!) coffee tables from Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn, this baby was a steal.  It also kept me busy and gave me something to brag about accomplishing when Rob came home from the DET.  Win-win!  Plus it survived the move to Beaufort without a scratch!