When is a door not a door, when it's a table...

I’ve been wanting to do this for probably 3 years now and I’ve finally gotten all the pieces to get it started. As a big fan of shabby chic, and vintage a coffee table made out of an old door seems like the perfect use for an unused door. Not only will it look cute but it reuses materials  that would otherwise be thrown away but I find it very fitting to use a door for a coffee table. A door is something that you use to enter a home and an open door is known to be a symbol of being welcome in a place and wear else would you want to be welcomed than your living room with your best friends, resting your oversized coffee mug on your cute vintage door coffee table. Cute vision huh? I obviously haven’t thought about this at ALL. Now that I worked up all expectations, including my own this coffee table now has to be perfect. The saga of the table began with a new back door.  About 2 years ago my dad told me they were getting a new backdoor and wanted to know if I wanted the old one. I immediately told him yes and then spent the next half hour working on what I would do with this door, and not working on whatever project or listening to whatever prof I should have been at the time. Well a year and a half went by and the door was forgotton, mostly because I was in Waco and the door was in Houston and we had quite the dysfunctional long distance relationship. I would think about him occasionally but he never showed his face out of the garage and always waited for me to come to him. But always the patient door, a year and a half after he became mine I found some old wooden bed posts painted teal. Well not only are teal bedposts awesome in any setting but these just seemed perfect for the  coffee table idea and were only about $15 at an antique fair. My dreams were finally becoming a reality! As this table saga continues, this is where the real action starts.

the antique fair find

THE door, post cut in half

Starting the base, look at those tools!

Once all pieces were  in place it was time to get out the power tools. I drew a sketch of the table I wanted to make and with some consulting help from my dad we headed to lowe’s to get some wood for the base. We settled on 1x4 wood pieces and then cut the wood, with a very rusty saw that did not make things easy! After getting to use the nail gun (my favorite part!) the base was ready to assemble. I painted the wood and the legs a blue color so that they would match, i used a stain instead of a paint so that it would be able to see through it just a little bit. I really love this blue, but I mean really who doesn't love blue? Blue is relaxing and pretty and awesome. The door also needed a light paint job and a wooden peg to cover up the doorknob hole. Luckily dad knows more about building than me and he said we needed to add some supports so that the table wouldn't be so wobbly, so we added some holes in the legs and some dowels so that the table was more stable (love the rhyme, don't ya?). Then it was time for assembly! The legs, dowels, and base got attached to the top and done!!! It's always so satisfying when something you've thought about for so long (and maybe too much) finally becomes reality.

Setting up the base again

 sanding the table legs made my hands this lovely shade of green



NAIL GUN & air compressor, i did get to use these, but i didn't take pictures while doing it (that might have been a bad idea)

All the supplies ready to go

she was lots of help making sure we did everything right, well when she wasn't chewing her rawhide bone

The makeshift painting station, we had to hang the legs so we could paint them without them sticking to anything! It's a bit dinky but it works.

More painting, don't worry I know your noticing the paint thinner, we did do this in a well ventilated area

 All primed

With blue stain added

The assembled base without the top

DONE!

The dream of this table definitely changed over the course of this project though. It was meant to be a coffee table but as you can see from the picture it's just a tad taller. I just couldn't bring myself to cut off the legs to make it shorter, I just knew it would take away the character of them. I also did plan on painting them because I loved their color but it was a necessity to make sure they matched and to get rid of some pesky pink paint that had gotten on them. I still love it though and I'm so happy that this table finally came to life! Now just little touches are left to add, including a large piece of glass to cover the top, so that it's an even surface and a few decorations for the top and voila, it's home worthy!