DIY Retro Coffee Table

With a slab of live-edge wood and three hairpin legs, you too can make this retro table straight from the ’70s. For this DIY we used hairpin legs available from Aluminium Flanges.

What you need:

A piece of live-edge timber. (Ours measured 600mm x 450mm x 75mm, irregularly shaped like a guitar body.)

3 x 425mm hairpin legs

12 x 4mm x 45mm wood screws

Woodoc 10 indoor polywax sealer – Velvet

Turpentine

Tools:

Cordless drill, driver bit, sander and sandpaper, paintbrush, clean cloth, steel wool

What you do:

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1. Sand the piece of timber on both sides until smooth. Use an electric sander for the surfaces and a piece of sandpaper for the edges.

2. Seal the timber with Woodoc 10 on both sides and the edge. To do this, first wipe down the wood with a cloth that has been dampened with mineral turpentine. Leave to dry.

3. Open the Woodoc 10 and stir well with a flat spatula.

4. Apply three coats of the Woodoc 10.

• Allow each coat to dry completely before applying the next coat.
• Sand lightly with fine steel wool after the first and second coats have dried.
• Once sanded, wipe down the surface of the wood with a clean, dry cloth to remove all dust, then wipe down the surface with a cloth, dampened with mineral turpentine and allow to dry.
• Do not sand after the third coat has dried.

5. Attach the three hairpin legs using screws. Put them far apart, near to the edge. It might take some trial and error to make sure they are stable and the table doesn’t fall over, so do some ‘dry runs’ first without screwing them in place.