How To Make Your Own Coffee Table
UPDATE: Commenters note that the Instructable seems to be posted by the same company selling the pricey hardware. The user name is "simplifiedbuiliding" and the parts are sold by "Simplified Building Concepts." Now we are suspicious. Maybe this Instructable should be called LACK (of integrity) Hack.
This post was originally titled, "How To Transform Rickety IKEA Table Into Sturdy" but then we realized you don't need to use an old IKEA table, like these people did. In fact, you can use their Instructable for any old table top, or just a good piece of wood you have laying around.
Don't buy overpriced furniture, make your own, then sell it a high markup. — BEN POPKEN
Coffee Table (Hack of IKEA LACK) [Instructables]
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Comments:
jeblis, I think LACK is capitalized. :)
Sturdy table, yes.
Stylish, no.
IKEA: Swedish for "crap".
It looks like the company that sells the expensive hardware to link the poles together is the one that posted the instructable--the company selling the hardware (Simplified Building Concepts) has the same username as the Instructable poster (simplifiedbuilding). Did anyone else catch that?
The title of the post should be:
"How to turn a $100 table into a $200 table"
I love the industrial Kee-Klamps and Aluminum pipe the article uses for legs but they are really expensive.
i think they should be less concerned with 'decoupaging' their old IKEA coffee table and a little more concerned with tossing out that eyesore of a plaid pillow sitting at the end of the couch.
Given what they are building in the photo, you can buy a hollow core door for $20, a set of legs and the hardware and have a huge coffee table for less than $40. Heck, if you need a cheap desk, you can use a hollow core door and two saw horses.
@segfault: Yeah, his profile says "I own a online business that sells industrial pipe fittings: www.simplifiedbuilding.com"
Please... If I paid $50 for an IKEA coffee table, I wouldn't go and spend $100 to rebuild it! I'd either go buy another or actually buy a decent one.
In college I did this all the time, took old furniture being thrown out and "re-engineered" it into new furniture. I made a set of drawers for my clothes out of an old store CD display case, a coffee table out of the top of a nice desk (the top was in perfect shape, one of those 1" thick 8'x4' polyurethaned plywood ), etc.
Had I known better I would have gone into business, apparently this kind of thing is just now catching on...
You can use cheap iron pipe and fittings, available at any hardware store, and get the same result for much less money.
My coffee table in college was made out of one of those big round particle board table tops with wood grain laminate (maybe it was even a sticker), a broken microwave, TV and Airconditioner were the base. It was impossible to move but you could hide your weed in the microwave.
Sweet Baby ODB that's the Big Bertha of coffee tables! Ugleeeeeeeeeeee!
also note that you have to cut the piping. hope you have a diamond blade sitting around somewhere.
What?!? A simple pipe cutter (as pictured) will do. Also, a hacksaw or sawzall would also work.
Instructables is one of those sites you should never visit.
It's like a vodka blackout, you start clicking around and hours later you realize it's midnight.
I'm amazed that IKEA does so well considering the utter lack of quality.