Welcome to DIY for homeowners. We're mother daughter projects. I'm Steph, I'm
Vicki. Today, we're going to make a simple C-table for my sofa. This is a brand
new sofa for Steph and she wanted a small end table so she could put her tea her
phone and her iPad which she uses as a remote. So I'm sitting here, I'm like
trying to think of an idea for the table I realized I had already seen the
table. My friend, Daniel, had to created a table pretty much just like this for his
sofa when he moved into his new house. So shout out to Daniel for the inspiration on
this project. Follow along as we show you how it
all came together. The simple materials you need for this project are five six
foot select pine two by twos, one half inch by three inch
three-foot poplar board, some wood glue clamps and stain. The first step is to
cut all the two by twos. We cut seven at 26 inches 7 at 12 inches and 7 at 10.5
inches. We lined up all the matching pieces and before I moved any further we
removed the sticky labels from the wood. We found this great plastic razor blade
for easily and efficiently removing these otherwise stubborn stickers. Next
we laid out all the pieces, and if you look on the left, I'm using a cut-off
piece to get the right spacing. Next it was time for the glue up. We put a good
amount of glue on each of these pieces. Here's a tip: on the longer pieces don't
glue all the way to the edge as this was annoying to remove later. We got them
lined up, clamped them together and removed all the excess glue with baby wipes. We
glued the top and bottom pieces and moved on to the side.
You'll see here that I didn't put glue on the longer pieces so I didn't have to
clean that part up.
I got everything clamped waited for about 24 hours then remove the clamps.
There's always sanding to be done and this was no exception. We went through
the grits starting with 80 and moving through to 220. One thing I wish I had
done was make the top and bottom boards about a half inch longer so that after
we got them glued up we could have made a nice straight cut on the ends as those
were a challenge to get sanded to the same length. The orbital sander was
taking too long, so we got out our belt sander and was able to get the ridges
nice and smooth. Here you can see I'm using a tack cloth. Once I've sanded
something I like to clean it off before I go to the next grit. Now a tack cloth
is just that, it's tacky and it picks up the sawdust. As you can see as I use it
it picked it right up, and you can use this tack cloth over and over. You
just simply fold it and unfold it until you get a clean side. With everything
sanded it was time to assemble. We fit the top and bottom into the grooves and
added a little bit of glue before we pounded them into their final placement.
One side was a little more stubborn so we clamped that one into place. We also used
a corner jig to make sure everything stayed 90 degrees. Did you see the straw
when I was cleaning up the glue? This is a great tip for cleaning up right angles
where there's glue and you just run along the edge and it picks it right up.
Once that was dried we did a bit more sanding and filled in any gaps at the
joints. Here I'm mixing some sawdust from our orbital sander with some glue and
I'm gonna use this to fill in any of the small gaps where the joints come
together and basically this is my own DIY wood filler. Before it dried we
removed any excess with water and a microfiber cloth. We wanted to add a
little extra pop to this so we use Frog Tape to tape off the edges. Then we
painted the inside with a fun purple paint. For the rest of the C-table we
first applied pre-stain conditioner which helps stain to go on Pine evenly. Then we
followed up the pre-stain with two coats of special walnut wood stain. The iPad
holder was actually an afterthought. That was made with a three-foot poplar board
from the Home Depot. We first cut three pieces at 10.5 inches and then one of
those pieces we cut in half lengthwise. Then we just glued the half piece to the
whole piece. We repeated the staining process then we glued the two iPad
shelves into place and clamped them for 24 hours. We're using a sample of Titebond
quick and thick glue which is made for vertical surfaces. It worked really well
and we didn't have any dripping glue.
We cleaned up the squeezed out glue with baby wipes. What we learned. I thought I had
really really sanded this well. Because, you saw the video. I did a lot of sanding but
you know when you start to stain any imperfection in the wood is going to show
up and it was very obvious that I had missed a few places on the top of this
table. If I was going to do it over again,
obviously I would do more sanding but I would probably trying to find someone
with a drum sander let that do all the work and be finished. And we do have a friend
with a drum sander so we have no excuse! but we're happy with how it turned
out. This little spot it's just a little rustic looking and that works in my
house so it's okay, and also coaster can go right over there so it works. But the
nice thing about this design is it super customizable. So if your sofa is taller you
can make this taller. If you want this table to be wider, you want to be longer
there's all different customization features you can do and if you're like
me and you use your iPad on your TV then you can make a spot for your iPad and
you always know where it is instead of having to hunt for it. So I really like
that that's not something that you get a normal furniture but you get that on my
furniture. Not only is this customizable but you can use it in several ways. You
can use it over the arm on the sofa, you can use it in front like a small desk or
Steph has had to put it on the floor like a table when her dog requires a
little attention she still needs to work. If you like this project and want to see
more from us be sure to visit us at motherdaughterprojects.com And sign up
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(Laughter and silliness!)