Entry Way Table

The front door of our house opens up right into our main living space which is separated into the living room and kitchen by a half wall.  So we needed the space to act as an entry way, but still flow with the openness of our house. Anything too big would be overbearing, and we didn’t want a cabinet or another bookshelf. After looking around, building a table/shelf/buffet was our best bet.

 

I started by drawing some plans to make sure that what I saw in my head could be produced based on our limited tools and time.

It is 3 ft. tall and 4 ft. by 1.5 ft. It fits perfectly along the wall and with the flow of the space. I added the bottom rails for support and to balance out the top.

We found all of the supplies at Home Depot including the 3’ table legs. The trim around the top is wall molding and the rest are boards that were already cut and ready.

I sanded and prepped everything and Ben cut the pieces. We started being pretty meticulous with our measurements but we ended up changing plans with where and how to attach the legs, so we got a little creative and attached the trim where it looked even.

The worst part was getting the trim pieces to line up correctly. The table was almost in the dumpster at this point. But, I lined up the corners as well as I could and filled the gaps with putty. If you look close, its not even close to square. But because it is underneath it is hard to tell.

Attaching the bottom rails to the legs was easy. We made little dowel pins and drilled holes in the boards and legs and glued them in place. What made it hard was getting the legs to stand perpendicular to the table, especially when the trim surrounding the legs wasn’t square and each leg wanted to lean a different direction. We ended up using tie down straps and clamps by wrapping it around the legs and hooks in the garage to pull everything into place. We let it sit overnight while the glue dried and when I pulled the straps off the next day, the legs stayed where we were supposed to. Good thing.

After that we stained, and stained and finally called it good enough. We used a stain with a built in protectant which ended up not going so well because it was hard to go back and add more stain while getting the color AND gloss to match.

The table shouldn’t have been so difficult to make which is why at the time it was so frustrating. But now that it is in the house, I love it. It fits the wall perfectly and it’s a great place to drop keys and such. Bella likes it too.