Saturday, May 30, 2009

Re-Purposing Furniture for other uses

Recently I made a decision to save a little money by converting a little used coffee table, which takes up too much room, and make it into a nice looking computer desk for use downstairs. Here are the basic items needed, tools, and steps I took to re-purpose some furniture.

Items Needed:
1 - Coffee table
4 - Screw Brackets, used for mounting to underside of table
4 - Table legs, with built in screws for attaching to screw brackets
1- Small can of stain

Tools:
1 - Drill, with drill bit and Philips screw attachment. (If you have a torque drill you're in the zone!)
Brush, disposable rag, and protective hand glove for applying stain
Pencil for marking drill holes

Preparation:
1. Stain new table legs and allow them to dry.

Steps:
1. In a clear area, turn coffee table upside down for easy access to legs. Unscrew original coffee table legs.
2. Take a screw bracket, align it to desired location underneath corner of table, mark and drill holes. Repeat for other three corners.
3. Place a screw bracket over holes and loosely screw in supplied screws into bracket. Next, set drill torque (for mine 15), and then tighten each screw down so bracket is secure. Repeat for other three corners.
4. Screw in each new table leg.
5. Carefully turn over coffee table, now used as (in my case) a computer desk. Enjoy.

I'm looking to do more projects as the pre-summer weather holds up and I may use the Instructables website, including pictures, for better how tos. Stay tuned.

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