Frugal Tuesday - Homemade Coffee Table

I'm a bit excited to share this with you today. I am a big fan of not only doing things yourself but doing them for next to nothing. There are so many ways to build things just using the supplies on hand all it takes is a little ingenuity and some time. So when Mountain Man decided to make us a coffee table I couldn't wait to see what he would come up with.

Mountain Man is insistent I tell you, however, that it is not finished. The wood, while seasoned, still has to finish drying for a few more weeks and then get another sanding, varnish and clear coat (left overs from an earlier project). As it sits and drys we will see little cracks forming here and there which give it even more character.  I just thought it was so cool I wanted to post it today. Meanwhile, I will not post a picture of the coffee table we had been using. It was one that was purchased for $2 at an auction and really was too ugly to take a picture of.

The building materials for this table are very simple. Mountain Man went out to the wood shed and selected three nice sized pieces of firewood, cut them to length, removed the bark and sanded them down. He could have decided to just make it a rectangle (or any other shape for that matter) but since we have our sofa's in an L shape he did the same with it. He then went out to the barn/shed area and hunted among his left over material. He found some windbreak lumber which had been left over from building the cupboards and stalls in the barn. They were then cut to shape and sanded smooth. (I love the graininess of it)

To stabilize it and make it a bit more cool he choose a nice long but very skinny tree and debarked it, sanded it, drilled the proper sized holes in the logs and pounded them gently into place. As a final touch, thinking that it needed a bit more embellishment he fixed some nice looking deer sheds, found on the property, to it.

You can't see it in the picture but on the long side of the table and underneath it is a small shelve about 8 x 12 inches for him to put reading glasses, pen and notepad etc. as this is his favorite spot to sit and look out the picture windows, or simply read the news or listen to his favorite radio program.

As you can see the result of his ingenuity is a functional, very study, grandchildren proof coffee table. Which cost.... Zero! How can you go wrong?

Update: the coffee table is finally finished! When I posted this a few weeks back it was still rough and unfinished but after a bit of tweaking (Mountain Man does that all the time! Creates something and then "tweaks" it until he is satisfied with the final result.) here it is.

I must say I love it! Especially the character of the knots and the grains of the wood! I can hardly believe it didn't cost anything except time. Oh, see that plug in sitting on the floor? The corner leg has a cut out where it fits perfectly. This way we can plug in laptops or anything else we need without hunting for a plug behind the sofa's.