DIY Laptop Coffee Table Project
One of the humble coffee table’s most common uses is holding laptops while we tap away on them. But since the coffee table wasn’t exactly intended for that purpose, it doesn’t hold laptops at just the right height whether you sit on the sofa or the floor. Instructables user Lofgren encountered just this problem and decided to take the bold step of modding his existing coffee table to his own purposes.
The project is reasonably easy to follow if you’ve got basic carpentry skills, and it doesn’t require anything you can’t find in a decent hardware store. It involves removing the top of the table and attaching some new arms that lift the tabletop up and to the side, letting you use the table as a handy laptop stand that’s usable while you sit on the sofa.
All told, the finished table looks a lot like the table that the modder started with. When it is extended it looks like a super-geeky laptop station that’s perfect for long gaming sessions. But when the top is lowered it looks just like a regular (but rather stylish) piece of living room furniture. And the creative guy behind the project managed to do it using his existing coffee table, spending much less than it would have cost to buy a brand new transforming coffee table.
“Several years ago, we bought a coffee table that was pretty much what we wanted. It was large, rustic-looking and solidly built.. but a bit high! We’d find that we’d sit back on the couch at the end of the day and put our feet up, only to find the coffee table was so much higher than the seat of the couch that it would soon be biting into our achilles tendons.”
“It was last day of my holidays and I found myself sitting back, watching ‘Hot Fuzz’. After shuffling my legs about on the table trying to get comfortable I thought it was about time to put a long held plan into action…..So, I checked with the boss and she liked the sound of my idea – mod the coffee table or get a new one!”
