Like 90% of my upcycled D.I.Y. projects, this one was the product of my wife's vision and imagination. When we rescued hundreds of linear feet of hardwood from a friend's home remodel, my wife and I both saw the project potential of it. I had no ideas how to use it yet, but before we even finished loading the flooring into the truck, my wife had this table in mind. My wife has a dedicated craft room in our house, she has been using a folding table with PVC pipe on the legs to elevate it to counter height. We had discussed building a custom table for her projects out of pallets and barn wood, but were having trouble procuring enough barn wood suitable for a table top. When we came across the hardwood flooring she saw it as a perfect substitution for the barn wood, the results turned out pretty great.
The materials used were pretty minimal:
- 1 - Complete Pallet
- 2 - Pallet 2x4 Sides
- 12.5 sq ft - Hardwood Flooring (minimum)
- 1 - Sheet 1/4" plywood
- 1 - 8' 1x3 board
- 1 - 8' 1x2 board
I started by cutting the plywood sheet down to desired tabletop size, in our case we cut the sheet down to 30 inches by 60 inches. My wife then laid the flooring out the way which functioned best and worked most ascetically. I then attached them to the plywood backer using a construction adhesive specially formulated for wood, and carpenter's wood glue in the tongue and groove, leaving excess hanging over the edge of the plywood backer.
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| Using straps, I forced the flooring tight together. |
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| Once glued and tightened, I weighed down the flooring to prevent it from buckling up. |
I then went on to make the free standing pallet leg:
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| I cut a pallet to the desired height and depth of the table. |
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| Once cut I reattached the 2x4 side to retain the strength of the pallet. |
Everything else was done completely in place, in the room:
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| The blank canvas |
I placed my free standing pallet leg and then fastened it to the wall, then using 2x4 sides from a pallet left over from a previous project I made wall mounts for the tabletop, mounted directly into the studs using lag bolts.
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| I had to cut my side mount down to fit the table top |
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| The back wall mount was centered between the sides |
Between the side wall mount and free standing pallet leg I constructed a structural brace using the 1"x3" board:
With the supporting structure completed, I fit the tabletop in place:
I cut a 1"x2" board for edging on the two exposed sides of the tabletop, we painted it prior to mounting the edging then patched all the screw holes with wood filler:
My wife uses many hand held electrical tools like her hot glue gun, Dremmel tool, etc. with this in mind she asked for a power strip to the front of the table to avoid wrestling with cords in her work:
The final step was to touch up the paint on the edging and attach the top to the wall mounts and legs using angle brackets:
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| The Finished Product! |
