Mike’s Walnut Coffee Table

This is a project my dad and I built together. The way it works is I come up with the difficult ideas and then my dad helps me figure out how we’re going to actually build them. For this coffee table I wanted to create a simple contemporary design that stood out from the ones everyone else has. For the sides and legs we used walnut. For the top, I gathered several weathered gray pallet boards I found on job sites and in some friend’s old wood piles. I let the pallets sit out quite some time in a dry area and even sprayed a little bit of disinfectant on them just in case. While those were drying, we milled the walnut boards and glued up the legs and cut them at the angle.

For the top, I planed the pallet boards on one side so they would be the same thickness and ripped them all to about 2″ in width–random lengths. We arranged them on the top and then glued and clamped together on the sides and to a plywood base. We mitered all four edges, which was the trickiest.

We then mitered the walnut sides to match up. Then more glue and more clamps. For the legs, I wanted to angle them to give the table more of a modern stance.

The top got a very light sanding to loosen any splinters and one coat of poly. For the walnut, I finished it with several coats of satin poly. I am very excited with how this table turned out. The best part was building this with my dad!