Stephen and I had our basement finished a couple of months ago. Once it was done, we had the fun task of furnishing it. In the TV room, we ordered couches and a recliner chair (Stephen’s fave), but we needed side tables to go between them. Instead of purchasing them, Stephen googled “Farmhouse side table” and found some fantastic free plans. He whipped up these two tables in two days! (I think it took me longer to stain them than it did for him to make them). 😉
Free plans are all over the internet and make things SO easy! The hard part comes when you want to alter the size of the original plan. That’s when you have to use some good old math skills to make sure you adjust all of the pieces of the project to make it work. Stephen built each table differently based on the two spaces we wanted to fill, so he had to do double the math!
These were parts of the plans that Stephen downloaded and printed out, along with his math work for adjusting the measurements: (Note: these were downloaded from one of our favorite DIY bloggers, Ana White, at https://www.ana-white.com)
Stephen did all of the above work, making the tables custom sizes for the spaces where we needed them. Here is one of the final products, pre-staining:
Here came my part! I used a new stain color this time. I find that stains look different based on the number of coats you use, the type of wood it goes on, etc… it’s almost hard to predict exactly how it will look, which can be frustrating! I usually google the stain color while at the store to see what it looks like on different projects people have done before. This time, I decided on Miniwax Wood Finish Penetrating Stain in Semi-Transparent Jacobean 2750.
I did two coats, and used a paper towel to wipe the stain all over the wood. I also polyurethane’d the top with water-based clear poly. I like the dark, yet semi-transparent look to it!
Stephen guessed that each of these cost about $30 to build. They’d easily go for $150 each in a store! I promise you, if he can make these and I can stain them, then you can, too!
It's Hammer Time 