www.CoffeeTableUpCycle.com

I'd like to say this is Pinterest Inspired, but it all actuality, it's SPACE inspired.

We've had this coffee table since the summer we were first married that I bought at a Garage Sale for $10. It's been a great table, but it's not very useful. It is light enough that we can move it wherever we wanted very easily, but in a 1 bedroom apartment with enough wedding gifts to fill a house, we just need more space.

Last summer, out of boredom and a creativity burst, I painted it!

So this Christmas Nick got me an Ottoman that right now is currently holding extra pillows and blankets! Since so much work went into painting it, the coffee table went out in the entryway as a place to set down our junk while using both hands to open our stiff/tight door to our apartment.

Now I've been inspired again to do an Up-Cycle. It's really the only thing I have that I feel like I can tear apart and turn into something else, because all our other furniture is really nice and/or and antique/family heirloom!

Here are a few images of ideas what I'm hoping to create out of this table top!
1. Not a Baby Changing Table, just the table with the awesome storage below!
2. This is the last Resort - basically adding legs and setting a basket on the ground below.
3. One shelf with artistic sides?
4. One Tall Shelf and 3 Small Shelves?
5. Just 1 Shelf - boring but still more storage
6. This will be the 2nd Last Resort

Thanks to my dad, (even without a basement workshop in my 1bdrm apt) I have almost everything I need to do this. The only thing I don't have is a saw.

A few days ago, I tried to pop out the little wooden pegs that cover the screw holes, but they were glued in there so tight I only got a few of them off/out. Even with some of the screws out, the base wasn't going anywhere so I decided if I could saw it off and see how the base was attached to the table top, then I would know how to proceed. I texted Nick's friend Tyler who lives in our same apartment complex and asked if he had a saw because I knew he had a lot of tools.  He didn't but he did have an Ax and a Machete!!!

So last night after I worked out, he came over and he went to town on my coffee table! What boy doesn't love to be destructive and demolish things with an ax!!!!

We got that little block off and I carried in some chip wood that I got for free out of a dumpster near where I work. I may use that, I may go to 1 or 2 Habitat ReStores and see if they have any table legs. If I could do with the FREE chipboard stuff, I already have the brown paint, nails, hammers and wood glue. The only thing I may need to buy would be a cheap saw like this one that's under $10.

Oooh and then the price of the baskets whenever it gets done. I do already have a lot of baskets that I may be able to move around and use here as well saving me lots of Dough!!

PART TWO

Here it is!

 Lily LOVED hanging out outside with me on the patio! I had to keep my eye on her to make sure she didn't go under the patio walls.....

 But after she did her snooping this was more her style: laying out in the sun!

 She's not used to it being sooo bright. The lighting in our apartment is sooo bad.

 Here's all the stuff, the table, the legs, the extra wood, the fun corner edges, the shelf, and all the tools!

 After 3 hours of work... this is all I had. I gave up. You have NO idea how frustrated I was. The saw sucked, the old table was such hard wood that I could hardly get a nail in it....

 I can't even describe how frustrated I was. If I could have found our cordless drill charger it might have worked better but I gave up. I was most upset with myself - literately sobbing because I really though I could do it.

 I did get this fun wind chime hung! So that's a bonus!

 I used all the wood to make a block for Lily so she can enjoy the patio more often!

So to solve my SPACE issue, and the problems: "I can never find something when I'm looking for it", and the "I have to pull out everything from 1 closet to get 1 thing" and "feeling soo cluttered", I went to Cost-co and fought to get it in my cart, then bought this, fought to get it in my car, the fought to get it into the apartment. The I had to put it together, which at one point called for 2 people, but I just crawled inside the box and used my head to hold the lid while I attached it!

 Then I put some stuff in it....

 Then I put some more stuff in it.....

 Then I tried to make our apartment warmer by putting the candle on a silver platter.....

 The made myself Chilli to eat this week! (I've never made Chilli before but this is delicious!) Remind me to get beans on the way home from Church tomorrow to add to it!

 ooh and remember how I said I was sooo frustrated... this was only a small part of why, but Ouch!