Our New Homemade and FREE Coffee Table

Furniture can be expensive! Unfortunately every home needs a least a minimal amount of furniture. So, what do you do when you don't want to spend a lot of money on a new piece but you feel you do need a particular piece of furniture? You don't ever have to buy furniture from a actual furniture store, whose prices are usually marked up quiet a bit anyway. There is always resale shops, garage sales and craigslist. I have used these sources many many times to furnish our home and ended up paying way below retail for my items. At times however you would prefer to not spend any money though. When that situation comes up I often check out our local Freecycle group first to see if anyone is giving away what I need and to post a want ad for a particular piece. You would be surprised at what all people give away and it is much better to pass it on rather than things ending up in the landfill. When I decided I needed a coffee table recently all of the above mentioned sources were unable to provide me with one, so I decided to make my own out of thin air which means for FREE.

Thankfully I am blessed with a super handy husband that can pretty much make any vision of mine come to life. I am soooo not handy with tools beyond the basic screwdriver and even then I get frustrated at times. Together, hubby and I were able to use what was piled up in our garage to make our family a new coffee table that we could put to good use.

A few years ago my husband brought home some wooden shipping crates he got from his place of business. They are always throwing these out once they unpacked them so he brought some home. We both loved the industrial rustic charm of them and knew we would be making something out of the crates, we just didn't know what yet. After putting in some new wood flooring in our foyer area we realized we had about enough pieces left to make a coffee table top. The flooring we bought at our local Restore by the way and got about $500 worth of premium flooring for $12.00! I can't remember if it was myself or my husband that came up with the idea of using the shipping crates for the base of the coffee table but after barely an hour in the garage making leftover pieces fit, we had a brand new FREE coffee table!

Ta da!!! We still want to put some feet of some sort on it but we will wait till we come across a bargain for those, for now we are happy with it just sitting on the floor.

What I love about our new coffee table, besides being free, is that has that rustic quality about it that we love and also stands up to kids. The top is made of flooring so I don't have worry about what kind of abuse this table will surely take over the next several years. All the corners and edges are somewhat rounded and smooth so it is fairly baby safe as well. I also love that it has stamped shipping labels which I think adds character and a bit of whimsy to the piece.

I am in LOVE with the metal corners that came on the crate!

The top is made of flooring that is suppose to looked worn so it works great!

There are lots of ways to make your own coffee table. I have seen them made from everything to cinder blocks to wooden pallets and even an old car hood. I personally like unique items that are handmade over something anyone can buy at a big box store. If you keep your eyes peeled you can find all sorts of items for absolutely free that you can fashion into various pieces of furniture with spending little to no money at all. 

Here are some other examples of homemade coffee tables I found online, I think they are all amazing!

Made by putting simple wooden crates together

Old doors turned into a super cute table!

Pallets simply stacked and used as way cool table

An old window with a picture behind it and legs added makes this adorable coffee table

basic pluming parts and some old wood into an industrial chic coffee table

These are just some of the examples I found, if you look online there is no limit to what people are creating for their homes. I encourage anyone that needs a new piece to better server their family to first look around and see what you already have on hand to make what you need. It is very satisfying to know that you fulfilled a need for very little money while getting to flex your creative muscles.

Simple Front Door Decor

Front door wreaths are kinda an obsession of mine. I love decorating my front door and making it look cheery and welcoming to my guest. Most of the major holidays I have some sort of festive door decor going on but then there are those times of the year where we are in between holidays and I need something more "every day" and simple. I decided a monogram themed wreath would be perfect.

After going through my craft reserves I realized I didn't have what I needed for a wreath so I decided a large monogram would be different and fun. I had picked up this large letter from a craft store for 50% off which made it $5. Also wait till your craft stores have their sales folks so you don't overpay! Our stores here usually run the sales on a cycle so even if what I need isn't on sale yet I know it will be within a matter of a few weeks.

The letter was brown cardboard type material I knew I wanted to paint it but didn't want to waste money on another can of spray paint when I have boxes of leftover paint from previous projects. I found the hammered copper spray paint we used when we gave our dishwasher and vent in the kitchen a face lift and thought it would be a perfect neutral for my monogram.  There was just enough paint left to give a good few coats and it dried great. You can't see the finish very well from the photo but it turned out to be a nice metal look which I adore.

Next I wanted to add some sort of spring/summer color so I went through my ribbon box and found this green burlap with white polka dots left over from Christmas. I had just enough to fashion the sort of bow I wanted. I used plain burlap for the actual hanging part and then just fixed the bow on top. What I really love about this method is that anytime I want a different look I can just change the bow out.

This project turned out exactly how I wanted it to, simple and cheap. Besides the $5 for the letter form I already had everything I needed really. I have gotten several compliments from neighbors and the oversized letter evokes a sense of whimsy which I love.

Not everyone enjoy decorating their front door but I do, to me it makes a statement about the people that live inside. Also I always feel more welcomed when I approach a home with a cheery wreath or such on the door. Maybe I am just weird though. hahahaaha