Offcut side table

Having moved the study round to fit the haberdashery cupboard I no longer had a place for my cup of tea while playing games on the Xbox.

I decided to make a small side table from some offcuts of timber.

I think the rails are beech but the rest is oak which I scrounged when we had a kitchen table made several years ago by Country Ways Oak.

I sketched up a design based on the bits I had. The size is so that I can store magazines on the bottom shelf.

I wanted to retain as much of the bark as possible. Like anything you make using the bits to hand, it was necessary to adjust the plan slightly as I went.

It was a quick build on Sunday afternoon. Deliberately very little cleaning up so all but the surfaces of the shelf and top are left rough sawn. Everything is screwed together from the underside.

The only tricky bit was because the front and back edges are deliberately left natural. Lining up the rails felt odd because they always looked out of alignment even after carefully positioning them with a square.

I am not sure how secure the bark is. It is rare to see any bark on timber furniture so I assume it is likely to fall off over time. To minimise this I have used two thick layers of floor varnish to finish the table. I use this varnish for everything because it is touch dry in 20 minutes and can be re-coated within 2 hours. It makes jobs a lot quicker and I get good results from it.