Maker Monday: DIY Plywood Coffee Table from MAKE

Photos reposted from MAKE
[Charles] I'm a fan of MAKE magazine for sure. Definitely this and Readymade are the go-to mags for me as a maker for ideas and cool projects. Through a bunch of random links, I ended up on this project today that is very similar to one of my concepts. I've always liked the idea of slanting the legs of a table with slots and allowing the weight of the top to hold it together. I like this one and with a little tweaking to lock in the top with another slot you could get rid of hardware all together. I love gypsy furniture that can just lay in the back of the car when you're ready to move. Let me know what you think...

Here's how they cut the slots - definitely good work for a router if you've got one...

Here's the base - supported just by locking into the slots that were straight in the legs and angled in the cross support. Pretty simple right?

Check out the entire how to on Make if you want...

Zero waste furniture - locally designed too?

My buddy Mickey is an architect and I like to rib him about taking real "furniture classes". I build furniture and design things, but most of what I've learned comes from trying things and reading. I am happy to experiment and have had some really great ones and some that never saw the daylight. Mickey has had some really great designs and I still remember when I told him months ago about this contest to make furniture from one sheet of plywood - no glue - no fasteners. We quickly imposed upon ourselves the idea that it should be zero waste. I had heard of other zero waste designs and I believe it is not only a better challenge but also much more responsible to not waste material when making things.

We worked on our own designs, and I had a few I liked, but nothing I was really happy with. Mickey on the other hand, showed up one night to a cookout with an MDF prototype in tow of a child-size chair. I wanted to offer advice, but it was pretty nice the way it was. Time got away from me and as I entered a busy and stressful part of my year, the deadline passed without my entry. Mickey however, entered two and kept it quiet. After seeing the designs and all the other entries, I wish more people could see it. There were all sorts of crazy designs in there with an honorable mention even going to a plywood bird's nest. It looked cool, but come on, seriously? Some of these things look like alien spacecraft not furniture. Anyhow, Mickey's designs didn't win, but he did build them both and photographed the assembly. He even did it with zero waste which I didn't honestly see another design attempt to do. I'll publish his shots here and hopefully we can get them in the shop soon so you can see them in person.

The desk is called Dorma and the table and chairs make up Ella's Party. When you see how cool these are, keep in mind these are one sheet of plywood, no glue, no screws, and built and designed by one guy.

If you want to see the other entries go to http://www.design21sdn.com/

-Charles