DIY Console Table

I have had several friends ask about the console table that my husband made for our narrow cabin hallway. If you are interested in creating a table of your own I will break down the process we went through. Please keep in mind we like to fly by the seat of our pants and are not professionals so follow our lead at your own peril.

I wanted a table to display all of the decor I used to keep on our fireplace in our previous home.

In our old house, we had added a custom built fireplace with cabinets. I loved the chalkboard signs my sweet sister-in-law made for us and I did not have a good place for them or the lanterns from their wedding at the lake.

First I scoured Pinterest to find images of styles that I liked to give hubby an idea of what I was envisioning. We discussed the attributes we liked and disliked about the examples we came across. Our final checklist included: chunky wood pieces, an x design on the back, 2 display shelves, and at least two types of wood to add interest. Once we had an idea of what we liked, we measured the space to determine what would realistically fit.

The ideal location for display was underneath the wall mounted tv in the living room.

As you can see, the space is adjacent to a fairly narrow hallway. Once we added the board and batton granite platform for our wood stove on the left, we really didn’t have the room for a full size console table. In addition to measuring the space, we measured the most important display items. We needed to create a table that would hold the keepsakes without making the hallway difficult to navigate. After collecting some measurements that seemed ideal, we placed some random household items in the proposed footprint. We then walked around it several times to determine if it would be functional in the space. Satisfied with the dimensions, we proceeded to draw up the design.

We purchased 2×4’s and some decking lumber (5/4 lumber) as our two types of wood.

Before we began, I sanded all the wood pieces to remove imperfections and make a finger friendly surface. Hubby got to work cutting the wood for the rectangular frame.

Hubby used a clamp to hold the two pieces of wood together. He glued the pieces and then used a Kreg jig to add pocket holes to hide the screws.

Here you can see the main frame for the table. The legs extend just slightly past the lower shelf to the floor. We have enough space to hide our power box for all the electonics underneath.

Nice and sturdy! Hubby always does his model pose test to make sure our creations are going to hold up to heavy use :).

Custom farmhouse style console table — Here you can see he added the x I wanted at the back of the unit. This wasn’t necessary to the structure, I just thought it looked pretty. The top is laid on without being attached. On the bottom we have the shorter boards cut and laid out but not attached. We were trying to decide how we wanted to do the end cuts. We ultimately decided to notch out the wood around the legs and have the shelf go all the way to the edge of the frame.

Before going forward with any further construction I stained and sealed all the pieces so they would be fully coated. This also prevented me from having to squeeze stain into tight grooves.

Custom farmhouse style console table
Minwax special walnut stain — I chose Minwax Special Walnut stain. I like working with polyacrylic water based sealer.

Once everything had cured. We did the final attachments with more kreg jig pocket holes and screws.

Custom diy console table
Minwax special walnut stain — Ta da! A complete custom table for under 100$. (I already had the stain and sealer.)

I quickly completed my favorite part: decorating! I love how this table turned out. It’s a wonderful piece to showcase some meaningful items for our family. If I had commissioned a custom piece, we were looking at a minimum of $1250 for the size that we chose. Our final costs were just under 100$ (during Covid wood prices) not including our already purchased materials like stain, sealer, and sand paper.