So we’re pretty much all moved into our new place down here and are now figuring out all of the furniture we will need to build for ourselves. As much as I wish we could have fit our couches, coffee table, kitchen table, and entertainment center in the trailer – we sadly could not. Like not even close. Not a single one of those items made the move with us. Instead we sold them all to re-build and re-buy once we got down here to Texas.
So we bought a new sectional to go in our living room because a pair of couches wouldn’t have really fit well, but we wanted to be able to seat quite a few people when we had company. The only issue is…..
Can someone please explain to me the most ideal coffee table for a sectional?!?!
If it’s a square, it’s not centered on the floor. Even if you make it a rectangle, anybody closer to the long end of the sectional can’t reach the table all that well! Cue the angled coffee table….it fills in the awkward void that a sectional leaves….and made me feel artsy and stuff….
This was my somewhat creative solution to make the table more centered in the room and look like it filled in the empty space in front of the sectional (Again, we’re pretty nerdy people, so any time we get an “artsy” bug, we just go for it!)
The Build
To start off, we went to our local hardwood dealer and bought an 8/4″ slab of Ash. We chose ash because we wanted a quality hardwood top, but didn’t quite feel like spending Walnut money. Also, I think the lighter color works better for a farmhouse/modern farmhouse look anyway. We then cut it down to one ~3.5′ piece and one ~5′ piece. We used our Festool Domino and wood glue to join them. If you want links to exactly what we purchased for our Domino set up, check out this blog post: Building Our NEW SHOP!
So you’re probably wondering….wouldn’t you have run that slab through the planer first before you joined the two pieces together? Why, yes! If our planer was wider than 12″….
This slab was roughly 14″ wide. So to create a level space on the edges where the table legs would be resting against, we through the jointed slab onto the X-Carve with a surfacing router bit. We manually brought the router bit down on the z-axis to jussstttt barely on top of the material. We didn’t want to take off a whole lot – just enough the make even over the edges. Do we eventually want to get a larger planer? Yes! However if we really wanted to, we could have had our hardwood dealer plane it down for us for a small fee. If you want to check out the surfacing bit we used for this project (and used for a few other projects) click here.
Next we started the leg assembly! We used poplar because, again, we wanted a hardwood to support the heavy ash top, but didn’t want to use anything too expensive. Especially because we were just going to dye them black with India ink.
After cutting down our poplar board and sending the legs through the planer a few times, we used our Domino and wood glue for all of the joinery! We had some fun with geometry building the legs that went on the 90 degree angle part of the table! After all of the legs were built, we sanded them all down and stained them jet black using India ink. This was our first time using India ink and I actually REALLY like it! If you’re going for a fully matte black look, this is the perfect option. It goes on just like a stain, and in this case it made our poplar legs look just like they were black powder coated metal legs! If you want to check out the India ink we used for this project, click here!
We put a few coats of General Finishes Enduro-Var Satin on the table top after sanding it down and even put a coat over the legs just so they were sealed.
We then used 2 1/2″ screws to attach the legs to the table top from the bottom. We used a larger bit than we typically would for pilot holes for the leg screws closest to the edge of the table top. This was for when the ash would inevitably shrink/expand. We used washers to keep the head of the screw at the surface of the legs.
And there it was. Our coffee table that takes a 90 degree turn! It’s a bit more of a unique design, but once we got it in the house and by the sectional, it looked REALLY cool.
Pricing (using our usual pricing structure)
So we built this coffee table for ourselves and not a client, but had a client asked us to build this EXACT table, below is how we would have priced it:
Materials: $116.72
Labor: $30 x 9hrs = $270
(Materials + Labor)x(1.4) = $540 Sale Price
The 1.4 multiplied above is how we get the final price including our 40% markup (that we re-invest back into the business).
So all in all the Sale Price for this exact table for a client would be $540!
It’s a bit unique, but we had a blast building this table! It feels so good to finally be able to build again!
#business #indiaink #angledcoffeetable #poplar #woodworkingbusiness #howtosell #howtopricework #ash #woodworking #hustle #coffeetable #DIY #sidehustle #howto #howtolaunchabusiness
This post may contain affiliate links for products we used to create this project! If you’d like to check them out, we do get a small percentage of the sale and they are of no extra cost to you! It all goes towards supporting the content creation of Jennie and Davis. BUT – we do not take tool sponsorships and there were no tool endorsements. Just our honest opinions!