Hey guys, and welcome back to the brothers workshop. Today we're going to show
you how we used reclaimed wood to build this modern rustic coffee table.
So, for this project we decided to go with reclaimed wood.
We took the wood from a house in an up-and-coming section of the city that
a buddy of ours was demoing. He asked us to come in; what we did was, we took any kind
of studs, and usable wood from the home that that we felt would add character to
the pieces of furniture that we decided to build. That's where you get the
character in this piece. So, once we chose the lumber the next step for us was to
sand them down. Being that these are over a hundred
years old; there was a lot of dirt and dust on them. The next step; we
grabbed our belt sander, and sanded them down to a point where we were able to work
with them. We treated the coffee table pretty much as a picture frame. What I
did was frame the outside first, and then cut the center to sit inside. In order
to cut the frame what we do here is we take each individual section of the
frame, and cut them at a 45 degree angle on both sides. 45 degree angles naturally
create a 90 degree angle giving us a perfect rectangle that you see in front
of you. After cutting the 45 degree angles; what we did next was took each
individual piece to the table saw where we notched out about an inch. This
created the picture frame style that we talked about earlier.
The center consists of two boards. To bring them together we dovetail them.
We did this by cutting notches opposite each other; we were then able to glue
them together, we added a few screws, and filled them with wood filler. Once we
had the center assembled the next step was to take an inch notch out of each of
the four sides. This gave us the ability to set the center into the frame like
placing glass into a picture frame. Once we have everything together we drill
pilot holes in the center piece that would attach the center to the frame.
Once we were done with the screws we clamped the coffee table and let it sit
overnight. The next day the first thing we did was fill each screw hole with wood
filler. Letting that dry for a couple hours; we came back and sanded them down.
The next step was to take a heavy grit sandpaper, and go over the entire piece.
Smoothing out any rough edges, and getting it cleaned up. Now that I was
convinced that had gotten all the rough spots out with the heavy grit sandpaper;
we took a fine grit sandpaper, and went over the entire piece again. Once we were
finished sanding it was time to add the polyurethane. Now, this piece has three
coats of polyurethane. The first coat of polyurethane was added shortly after
sanding, we let it sit for a night, and came back again. We took that very fine
sandpaper that we used prior, and went over the piece again. Once we were done
sanding, we brushed it off, and added another layer of polyurethane.
We repeated this step one more time. If you guys didn't realize, the coffee
table is not done. it's missing something, it's missing legs. Dave and I were
talking, and we thought that instead of building legs why don't we do something
unique and different? But, we don't do metalworking, well, not yet anyways.
We're trying to get into that. So, he threw out the idea of checking out a store on
the other side of town here that sells all kinds of parts for, tables, legs, and
chairs. It's a woodworking store, and he told me that they had some some legs
that might be up our alley, and we're just gonna go check it out see if
they have anything that will keep to the aesthetic of what we like in that rustic
industrial look.
So, I just left the woodworking store, and I was able to find exactly what I was
looking for. These are gonna be mid-century modern
hairpin legs; they're not exactly rustic or industrial, but they're still gonna
give me the look that I'm going for.
There you have it, that was a pretty easy build, it it took a little bit of
time due to all the sanding and the application of the the polyurethane, but
it's well worth it. In the end, a couple things to note: make sure that the wood
filler that you have is right for the piece of wood you get, and the
polyurethane actually darkened this coffee table. So, the the polyurethane
probably made this coffee table about two shades darker than what it normally
would have been if I didn't do anything to it. Which kind of makes this
wood filler pop. I don't mind I kind of like it.
But, at the end of the day everybody's style is different, and if you don't like
this then your going to want to make sure that you get a darker wood filler
because the polyurethane will make your piece slightly darker. Not very much, but
slightly. Be on the lookout for more videos coming soon!
We're going to continue to build this style furniture; we're going to continue
to work on some cars, some trucks, and we have a few things up our sleeve for the
future, so don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Until next time...