Wood’s Woman

Okay guys, So I’m about to throw some DIY-realness your way on the blog this afternoon. You ready? Good, great, let’s do this.

As some of you know…I recently moved to an apartment in downtown Kansas City and I’m truly living every moment of my new A-dult life. However, as I am…just an average shrub (pun intended) I couldn’t afford a super duper expensive coffee table. Surprise! I am living on my means here as a no money, no problems post-graduate and a $300 coffee was just not a justifiable purchase.

So… I decided to get creative and make my own coffee table (see above) To create it, I used the following items:

Cottonwood tree round (3ft diameter and 3in thick)- Facebook Marketplace $40
Hairpin table legs- Amazon $21
Automatic miniature sander- Meagan Dandy, a true friend $0
Power Drill- Meagan Danderson, the truest of friends $0
Varathane triple thick polyurethane- The Home Depot $15
Paint brush- The Home Depot $1
12 Hillman 1″ screws- The Home Depot $7

But Juniper, how did you actually use these items to create this super-cool coffee table!? I’m glad you asked…let me break it down for ya!

I started by purchasing the wood on Facebook Market Place from a lovely man named Jonathan. He sold me this cottonwood tree round for $40. Which, is a FREAKING STEAL because wood can get really expensive.

Then came sanding the wood. I was fortunate enough to have a wood’s woman bestie who just so happened to own a small automatic sander. PEOPLE, let me tell you that my original plan was to sand this piece of wood by hand and after doing it for about 15 minutes… I sent out an SOS because it was so much harder than I anticipated.

So, advice time: borrow an automatic sander from a friend, you’d be surprised on how many people actually own one and if all else fails, rent one from a hardware store…I promise your arms will thank you later.

After sanding, I drilled .5 cm holes into my tree round to create space for the screws that I would eventually screw into the wood. It is important to drill holes in the wood before you place the screws because if you try to drill the screw into the wood directly, it can split the wood. This is a no bueno move, so please…do not do it.

My next step was coating my tree round with semi-clear polyurethane, I bought this at my local home depot and it was around $15. I coated the top and the bottom of the tree round two times to make sure my wood was thoroughly protected.

The polyurethane that I bought was quick drying, so I waited around two hours for it to dry before applying another coat. After the polyurethane was completely dry, I then screwed in my 16″ hairpin table legs I bought from amazon for only $21…truly, I know I’m an #affordabilityqueen.

And VOILA… I created a rustic wooden coffee table for under $100 and YES, my mom is very proud of me.