Wooden Crate Coffee Table - Day 2

8/15/12

I don't know about you, but, when I go to the hardware store, I like to drive around with lumber in my car for at least a day before I unload it.  I like the smell of wood, and...um...

No.  I'm totally lying.  I don't like to do this.  I'm just lazy about unloading, so, sometimes, I do.  That's what I did when I bought the supplies for my latest project, anyway.  I think I took out the lumber that evening, but I left the crates in the car until well into the next day.  When I did take them out, I decided to lay them out on a tarp on my porch, so I could get an idea of what I was dealing with, and how it would look when I got it put together.  I think it's gonna be awesome.

Now, Shane asked me how much this project is costing me, so I tried to sort of estimate, having not bothered to keep my receipts.

The crates were about $12 apiece at Michaels (I should have waited for a coupon!  I was too excited), so that's $48.

Now, in the tutorial I posted yesterday, I think she says she used 1x2x6 for the support underneath the table, but, when I looked at it at the hardware store, I thought it looked a little flimsy for us.  We are a rough and tumble bunch.  I went with 1x4x6, which was (as I recall) $5.81 per plank.  I also bought 3, instead of the 2 called for in the tutorial, because I had decided to build the undercarriage (undercarriage??  That's probably the wrong word.  You know.  The part underneath the crates that holds it all together and supports it.) differently.  More about that next time.  That's $17.43.

Then, I got 4 casters at $2.95 each ($11.80), and two small boxes of screws at $1.99 a pop ($3.98).

So.  Let me do some math here....

I think that comes to $81.21.

Unless I did the math wrong.  You can check my numbers if you'd like.  (Math is NOT my forte.)

Not an especially cheap project, but I don't think that's a terrible price for a custom table.  I probably could have shopped around for better deals, used coupons, etc., but I'm okay with this splurge.  It's going to be a very special table.

Brief synopsis:

On Day 2, I unloaded my car, set my crates together to see how they might look as a table, and did some math.