Five directions for the coffee table

One of the functional elements of a living room (dining room) that connects the whole room, and brings together in a fixed point of interest almost all eyes, is the coffee table.

Product designers and architects compete year after year to produce the most interesting sculptural objects to serve as coffee tables.

If you don't have a mad passion for designing furniture, but still want to bring a fresh breath of air to your living room, today's article should familiarize you with a few projects ordered in ascending order of difficulty in completion.

Respectively five "do-it-yourself" approaches(en. "DIY - do it yourself") to bring an interesting element to your space that you can show off at parties.

1. Europalletsand a handful of nails

Or as my mother would say: "the student approach", lends itself well to young spaces with Scandinavian influences, open-coloured (or even white) walls and a few industrial accents. It can be made from one or two standard-sized pallets, a few dozen nails, 4 standard feet "ac"(the latter, hard to find, already made, on the Mioritic plains) and a protective agent well spread with a brush in a few layers.

Note: Don't forget to read the article written by Dan about wooden pallets, as it explains very well which ones are good to use in such projects.

2. Lumber

If you've ever walked through the lumber area of Dedeman, MrBricolage, Praktiker, etc. and the smell of wood has awakened an inexplicable urge to produce a piece of furniture, here's a model to consider for your future personal Saturday projects (because on Sundays the grass doesn't grow).

3. Pieces of poplar arranged in a soldered pattern

A very simple project with a very interesting secret of execution. At first glance you'd think it's 70 even pieces of poplar arranged neatly on a wooden board and "welded" together with an epoxy binder, but behind the design there's a trick that makes the object lighter in mass and easier to handle: it's hollow on the inside, and the poplar pieces actually flank a box made of chipboard or PFL.

4. Frame and glass - Evan's Coffee Table

If you still feel that the previous projects were not challenging enough, I invite you to admire the creation of BrickerAndBeamand try a similar design for your space. In theory it's simple: you need 12 pieces of wood and a piece of glass. In practice I recommend using laminated wood for the surfaces that hold the piece of glass, and tempered glass (the kind you install in showers) with a thickness that is correctly calculated for the opening you have in mind for your project.

5. Rising Table - Robert Van Embricqs

And for the finale I kept one of my favorite projects (mainly because I like complicated things with many moving parts and many points where something can go wrong), namely a coffee table from the series Rising Furniture (furniture obtained by folding and vertical translation)of the architect Robert Van Embricqs.

If you have any questions about the construction methods of the pieces shown, ask us in the comments area and we will be happy to answer you as soon as possible.

Good luck!