Resin Coffee Table – Made By Louis

Louis made this lovely resin coffee table by cutting an old slab of walnut in half and then spinning around the two outer ‘live’ edges back into the middle to form the resin ‘river’ effect. A lot of elbow grease with the sander (which covered absolutely everything in the garage with a thick layer of resin dust) and a couple of coats of our beloved Osmo oil then brought it it up to very smooth finish. He wants to sell the table, but I’m trying to persuade him to hang on to it.

Kitchen Bench – Made By Ed

This was perhaps one of my most rewarding little projects. My great pal Guy cut up a large oak tree trunk with his chainsaw, and offered me one of the slabs. So after a few days of hard graft cutting it down and sanding it smooth, I had a lovely smooth top for a new kitchen bench. The legs were cut and welded from some leftover steel found in the corner of the garage, and brush-finished with an angle grinder and then spray lacquer. Then I cut down the leftover scraps from the same oak tree into battens, popped them in our new home-made steamer for an hour or so, and steam-bent them into large decorative curves to make more of a feature of the legs. Total cost of the bench…absolutely nowt.

This is our new home-made garage wood steamer:

Floating Coffee Table – Made By Louis

Our mate Andy from 3rd Edition Furniture (amazing cabinet makers) was having a clear out of his workshop, and kindly gave us a pile of birch ply and oak veneer. So Louis set to work making this floating coffee table. It’s a design based on something he saw on YouTube, and is technically called a “tensegrity construction”. The top table is actually hanging on the middle piece of high-strength fishing line, and the other three fishing lines on each corner are tensioned to just provide stability. Our glass cutting skills are sadly still not up to scratch (we had a few disasters trying), so we had to pay a very nice man at the glass shop £2 to cut this inner triangle piece

Nest Of Tables – Made By Louis and Ed

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Wardrobe – Made By Louis and Ed

With Louis’ older brother leaving home, he got to move into the bigger bedroom, and this gave him a good excuse to start making more furniture. This loft room has sloping ceilings, so Louis designed and built this funky ‘open plan’ wardrobe to perfectly fit into a corner. The frame is welded from 25mm box section steel and then powder coated, and the shelves are walnut veneered. This was the first project we got to use our brand new lovely table saw for which was incredibly exciting and enjoyable.

Studio Console – Made By Louis and Ed

Louis’ good friend Richard is a very fine drummer who built a garden shed to be able to practice his drums in. As well as a drum room, he wanted to create a small music studio and was looking for a suitable studio console for his equipment. So we rummaged around in a builder’s skip in the village and found two pieces of old kitchen work top. We had to glue a few pieces together to get the shape we wanted, but the work top sanded down beautifully and after a few coats of Osmo oil (the best stuff in the world) was as good and smooth as new. Total cost of this project was £16 for the metal legs. Lou gave it to Richard as a 17th birthday preset.

This is where the wood came from….

Oak and Resin Desk – Made By Louis

Louis used a large piece of oak that was left over from his GCSE project (see below) to make a bedroom desk. The oak had a large hole which was filled with a special black and gold fleck resin and polished to compliment the smooth oiled oak. He cut and welded the legs from box section steel and then sprayed them black for a sleek finish.

Resin Table – Made By Louis

This was Louis’ GSCE project and made entirely at his school from one single piece of oak. The top is formed from two cuts of the oak, back to back with their ‘live edges’ in the centre. A pour of blue resin bonds the two pieces together and produces a ‘river’ effect running through the table top. A shelf and soft close draw beneath completes the bedside table.

Infinity Tables – Made By Ed and Louis

We already had the bases of these small drinks tables, but decided to have some fun creating new table tops for them. We always fancied having a go at making infinity tables so these gave us the perfect opportunity. They are made using an LED strip sandwiched between a bottom mirror, and a top dark tinted glass. The resulting reflections bouncing between the mirror and tinted glass give an effect of the LED lighting disappearing down into the table as far as you can see. Cups and glasses placed on the table top appear to be floating in mid-air.

Kitchen Unit – Made By Ed and Louis

We wanted to make a quirky kitchen unit using as many recycled bits and pieces as possible, with a sort of ‘building site materials’ theme. The top is made of polished concrete which we formed by pouring into a large mould. The frame is made from scaffolding type tubing (with internal draw frames made from a old shopping trolley). The front panels are old pallet wood, with clay pipes being used for wine storage, and the six side draws are old wine bottle crates that were salvaged from a building site bonfire pile.

Upcycled Shelf Unit – Made By Ed and Louis

This was a quick ‘up-cycling’ project of a shelf unit. We had some left over walnut veneer and enjoyed using our new table saw to cut it to size. With some walnut edge banding and a couple of tester pots of paint, this whole little project cost a total of £5.