Woodworking may be a pastime I can take for granted at times.  People that see the hobby as either too expensive or too difficult to get into could easily be discouraged.  I often times don’t realize that being in the craft for more than 20 years has put me in a place of complacency.  The last thing I want people to think is that woodworking or DIY projects require a multitude of tools and years of experience.  How did I end up doing it for over two decades and not have a starting point?  If you really think about it, every journey in life begins with baby steps, in fact, quite literally.  I began this hobby I have grown to love so much with these exact “baby steps”.  My first real tool was a gift from my grandparents and I had no idea where it would take me, but I was up for the ride.  This project was designed for those exact people in mind.  The ones that are just getting started and were too apprehensive to plunge in for whatever reason.  Oh, and by the way, after being in this hobby for this long, it was still a fun project to call my own.  A simple end table that was made by me.  For no other reason than I like to make stuff.

“I” got started by letting my local home store do most of the heavy lifting.  Most stores will cut lumber down to size for you without additional charges.

If you can’t find a supplier that will cut wood to length for you, there is always the good old fashioned way of doing it by hand.  And here is that exact gift from my grandparents I mentioned earlier, a simple handsaw.  A treasured piece in my tool arsenal to this day.

No matter how you achieve it, here are the cut to size components.

Being lucky enough to have a Kreg Jig® at my disposal, I utilized it to make pocket holes in my work pieces.  Kreg had sent me a K5 as part of a giveaway.  The mounting board I made for it works out really well.

Not to say that a smaller Kreg Jig® couldn’t be used, I demonstrate it as well from one that I had purchased years earlier.

I could also put the pocket holes in each end of the apron pieces as well.

Moving on to assembling the top, I merely screwed the two 1×10 together on their edges.

The leg sections took little effort to assemble.

If you are doing this with limited tools, screwing the legs to the apron can be done without the aid of clamps, but they sure do make lining everything up a heck of a lot easier.

Once I had two legs attached to each of two aprons, those assemblies can be joined with more pocket hole screws using the remaining aprons.

Although not required, I used a card scraper to smooth out the top a bit and took some sandpaper to knock off the sharp corners of the base.

I decided to go with dark walnut danish oil to finish the top.  Pouring it on and wiping it around the entire top.  Once it had soaked in for approximately 10-15 minutes, I just wiped up any excess.

For the base I went with a white paint.  First using a foam brush to get into the corners and coming back with a foam roller to finish and smooth everything out.

If you are at all worried about the top expanding and contacting through the seasons, you can just place one screw on each side just off center from the seam in the top.
And here is the end table all completed.  If you are interested in building this end table, click the icon below to bring you to the cutlist of all the parts along with a simple set of plans.  Thanks for stopping by!