My daughter moved into a small apartment for college after COVID eliminated the option of staying with family. We pieced together what furniture we could, but once she moved in, she found she needed an end table. Not just any end table would do, because in her small apartment, there was only a small space for one. She asked for a table 18" wide by 32" long by 17" high. It is a nice feature of build furniture -- you can build it to fit the space you have.
I searched through my scrap and found enough pine to do the job. I had cheap pine project boards from Menards that I glued up for the top and shelf. I had some old glued-together pine boards for aprons. I milled down some 2x4s to make the legs.
The tabletops glued up but were crooked, of course. I used my small Japanese wooden plane to smooth them down and chamfer the edges. Sanding got them smooth.
I cut a slot using the table saw in the apron boards for all of the tabletop mounting hardware. The aprons I glued and then doweled for strength.
Unfortunately, the groove I cut in the apron was in the wrong spot. To cut a new one in the aprons I bought a rabbiting bit that I could use on the glued pieces. Unfortunately, this project uncovered a pretty major issue with my router table, besides it being a pain to set up. The bit caught and changed the height of the bit. It caused me to have to cut the groove several times. Luckily, all that is hidden underneath.
I cut holes through the lower shelf for the legs, which caught screwed into place inside the apron. Unfortunately my morticing skills are still not great, so the holes were a bit off. A little molding around the legs hid the gaps. The whole piece got a couple of coats of cherry minwax stain, as requested by my daughter, and a couple of coats of wipe-on poly.
The end products is a bit rustic, but functional. It should hold to everything short of standing on it. It was a good learning experience. It also spawned a new project -- replacing the router and lift on my router table.
