Good evening quilting friends! Tonight I want to share a project that my husband and I completed three years ago because it is still relevant AND useful today . . . my DIY cutting table. Maybe it will provide inspiration to a need that you have in your sewing room! In the summer of 2012, we did some rearranging and de-cluttering in our home, and a spot opened up next to our family room where I could create a dedicated sewing and crafting area. This new spot allowed me to enjoy my sewing or scrapbooking and still be part of family conversations and TV viewing. It also meant I finally had enough space for a real cutting table. I found a really cute $30 drop leaf table at an occasional shop near our home town. With both leaves up, it had just the right surface area for a large cutting mat, with a little extra space on all four sides. However, it was too short. I\’m only 5\’ 7\”, but I was bending over to do my cutting. Not an ideal situation!
During the de-cluttering and rearranging episode, we purchased a larger dresser for my teenage daughter. Up to this point, she had been using this pretty birch dresser which was a hand-me-down from my parents\’ cabin. We brought it downstairs and had the idea to marry the two pieces somehow, creating a cutting table with storage. You can see how thrilled my husband looks at the outset of the project. 😉
We ended up removing one set of legs from the drop-leaf table. We also removed about 8 inches from the bottom of each of these discarded legs.
We attached these 8-inch pieces to the bottoms of the \”good\” legs by using dowels and wood glue. This extended the height of the drop leaf table.
Then my husband added some bracing and joined both units together!
We usually joke that I have the vision and he has the brawn, but he really came through with some great ideas on this project. With the hard work completed, all that was left was to paint the entire thing. I did what you are not supposed to do. I waited for a cool day, opened every window in the house, laid down a lot of plastic, and spray painted the entire unit. It worked out just fine! No one fainted or got a paint headache. I did get a tiny bit of paint mist on the floor, but it actually wiped right up! 😉 A little distressing to the edges, and our DIY cutting table was ready for use!
And here is my cutting table today . . . three years later and I still love it. I know I would never find anything quite like this in a store! The back side is high enough that someone could sit on a bar stool and work, but I\’m usually moving around too much for that.
I hope you enjoyed our little DIY project. Thanks for visiting my blog!
