Antique Parts Cabinet Coffee Table DIY

Antique Parts Cabinet, Coffee Table DIY

Welcome back.  You may not have noticed but I took the past month off.  It wasn’t a planned break, but life got in the way of my blog.  First there was a daughter in law birthday, son’s birthday, father’s day, jury duty, great nephew’s first birthday with a week trip to Ithaca New York, other daughter in law birthday, jury duty, fourth of July week and a trip to the beach followed by hubby’s birthday.  Probably other stuff too, but those are the highlights.

Well I’m back just in time to transform this antique parts cabinet into a one of a kind coffee table.  Good friends and neighbors Matt and Kari are packing up their house of 25 years and moving south to warmer weather? Their youngest son grew up with my youngest son.   They have both since graduated and flown the nest.  I suppose it’s time. 😥 

They had a yard sale a couple of months back to get rid of excess furniture and this was in their sell it pile.  The moment I saw it,  I had to have it and they very generously gifted it to me.  As you know,  I do love drawers and cubby holes!

This is the current bottom and back of the parts cabinet.  There are two strips of wood on the bottom and the backs of the drawers are exposed.

I’m first tackling the bottom.  Cut a piece of plywood the exact size of the base of your cabinet.  

To lift the cabinet off the floor  and to make the coffee table easier to move, I’m adding 4 casters that were left over from my Recycled Crate Coffee Table from last year.

Mark where you want your casters to be located.  If you have the proper size hole saw, use that to cut the holes in your plywood.  Unfortunately, one of my hole saws was too big, the other too small.   Do not go out and buy the right sized hole saw.  Chances are, this will be the only project that it will ever be the perfect size.

If you don’t have a hole saw that fits your caster, drill a starter hole with a large sized drill bit then cut out your circle with a jigsaw.

My casters are inserted into the plywood and screwed on from the bottom.  Unfortunately they stick up about 1/8″.

Around the perimeter of the base of my coffee table I’m nailing on thin slats of wood (otherwise known as shutter slats).  These will elevate the bottom plywood just enough to avoid the countersunk casters.

Attach the plywood and caster bottom to your coffee table.  I used my nail gun with finish nails but you certainly can use screws.  

Because my cabinet was missing it’s back, I cut a piece of 1/2″ plywood to fit and nailed it on with finishing nails.

The sides on this cabinet needed to be covered as well.  

If you like, paint the sides and back to cover up the plain plywood.  This is a sand color.

To trim out all those rough edges on the sides and front, I’m cutting wood strips from an old 2×4. Just run your 2×4 thru the table saw at your desired thickness.

Sand well.

After sanding, the wood strips were finished with a coat of clear wax and just a tiny bit of antique wax mixed in to give a light brown color.  Paint on and wipe off the excess.  The middle slat has the added antique wax.

When dry, buff with fine steel wool.

Trim out the sides and back as shown.  Nail on with finish nails and a nail gun if you have one or glue on with builder’s adhesive.

I used the same trim for the front though it had to be cut down just a bit to fit on the sides.

Now for the top.  Cut another piece of plywood for how large you want your top to be.  This was a fairly narrow parts cabinet, I wanted my  coffee table to be a little wider.  Cut your plywood to reflect how large you want your top to be.  This plywood is only a couple inches wider than the top but with added trim it will be about 4″ wider in the final product.

Gather any wood you’d like to be your final top.  Hopefully it will be a little nicer wood than the plywood sides.  My 3 pieces all had tongue and groove so I’m assuming they were all either floorboards or paneling.

The middle piece above got switched out due to a nice long crack.  Sand all your boards well, getting rid of any existing finish.

Frame out the top pieces with  inch wide scrap wood pieces mitering the corners.  These pieces should be wide enough to hide the edges of the top flooring pieces as well as the plywood they’re sitting on.

Sand well, especially those corners and use that nail gun to attach  (or finish nails).

Finish as desired.  I’m going back to the clear wax, followed by a coat of antique wax then buffed once again with the fine steel wool.

Make sure you’re on the lookout for other items you can use to make your own one of a kind coffee table.  You can find a gallery of all my previous upcycled and repurposed coffee tables here.

As always, stay inspired.