a couple of DIY OSB tables.

A few weeks back we joined the 21st century and bought a TV. It's a pretty big deal for us. We had an old fashioned monster-of-a-TV we kept upstairs... that we had our dvd player hooked up to... but we never used it. We liked to watch hulu or netflix shows, but our TV was too old to hook our computers up to. Anyways, we splurged a little and bought a flat screen. It is wildly exciting to be able to watch our netflix movies on a "big" screen. It's only 32" but to us it feels like a movie theater screen. We now had a little bit of a dilemma... what do we put our TV on?!

[old couch set-up with matt's large and beautiful coffee table...and the ol' chewy popping up in our pictures yet again]

Part two of this dilemma was...we moved our living room/couch set-up to another room...a smaller cozier room that needed a smaller coffee table too. Matt had built us an exquisit coffee table when we first met, but unfortunately it was too big for our TV/couch room now. We also were looking for a coffee table that had a little shelf to stash our computers underneath when we weren't using them. So now we not only needed an entertainment table but also a coffee table.

We shopped a TON and were rather dissatisfied with what we were finding within our budget in our small city. So we decided, what the heck, we could build our own tables!

We know that we LOVE our pipe patio table that we made and knew we could replicate that somehow.

We also are suckers for OSB (oriented strand board). We even have this tree artwork in our bedroom that we made from OSB a few years back.

For this project we bought:

• 1 1/8" thick OSB sheet
• 4 black iron pipes
• 2 flanges (connect the pipe to the underside of the board)
• 2 couplings (junctions between the pipe pieces for style)
• 2 reducers (feet)
• 2 brackets (to mount the table to the wall for just in case when Cora is mobile)
• hairpin legs for coffee table (old table from an antique store)
• 2 cans of spray polyurethane

Total cost of the supplies for the two tables: $90
(we also already had an orbital sander & router which were crucial)

The antique table we found for $20 had beat up boards on it, so we removed the boards and up-cycled the legs! The table top happened to have a lazy-susan feature, which is nice and quirky. So the table top spins if you want to rotate it.

[oh geez. make-shift entertainment stand]

So, with that matt started to make our dream tables. We wanted one continuous line for the TV and huge swiss-cheese plant to sit on. Unlike the picture above... so very staggered for such a small wall. The 1 1/8" thickness of the OSB was perfect to be sturdy, look industrial but also give us the edge we wanted. And we thought the coffee table would compliment the pipe-OSB table nicely.

[what OSB looks like after cutting... raw for indoor furniture]

 [matt doing a practice-routing for me to evaluate]

[all of the pieces sanded and ready to be polyurethaned]

[the routered edge without urethane on it yet...so very pretty, almost wood-grain-esq]

We are in love with our tables. They just fit our style. We have so many different types of wood in our house, so the OSB with its little flecks of different colored wood was perfect. The only issue we have with our minimal-industrial table is that there is no hiding the cords or sub woofer. Matt grouped the cords with zip ties and a hook on the underside of the table... but other than that we still see them. I will continue to peruse pinterest for a wire solution.

[our new cozy couch set-up]

[cute skinny pipe leg]

[finished edges, the urethane just makes it pop]

Ta-dah! A couple of DIY OSB tables done! I guess we are still capable of squeezing in projects here and there.