Sofa table modification – opinions?
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Projects / Sofa table modification – opinions?
- This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 12 months ago by lcalbertson.
-
AuthorPosts
-
5 May 2016 at 2:11 am #136998
I’m planning on building a few small side tables. I like the simple look of the larger sofa table project on WMC. You can see my sketch-up drawing of my idea. Really based off the sofa table with a different shelf type. The legs start out at 2.25″ square and taper down to 1″ square (at least that’s how the current draft is measured). Because of the smaller table size I thought I needed to modify the shelf because I couldn’t get a design that had the right proportions with the original design.
The short rails that will hold the bottom shelf on the drawing I have as 3/4″ thickness that I thought I’d M&T the shelf rails into (which I thought could be 1/2 to 5/8″ material). Still deciding on 3 vs 4 shelf rails.
Seems fairly straight forward but I’ll take any comments on any aspects of the design you think I should reconsider before I start building.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.5 May 2016 at 3:34 am #137003I think it looks fine as is and the thicknesses you mention should be fine. I was looking at the tapered legs. I like the look of tapered legs, but beware that your shelf “short rails” will have to have angled shoulders to accommodate the leg taper angle. Not a big problem – just draw it out on paper (or cardboard or plywood) full size to help get the angles.
One way not to have that problem would be to taper the legs below the shelf. But I think that would look clunky. It’s not much of a hassle angling the shelf rail shoulders.
Good luck.
5 May 2016 at 1:21 pm #137031Another way to avoid the angled shoulder for the shelf support is to just taper the legs on the 2 outside surfaces and leave the 2 inside surfaces straight.
Sometimes when you taper all 4 leg surfaces, a table looks almost to delicate. If you are after that look that is fine. But, by just tapering 2 surfaces, it still looks good but has some added beef.
Another thing to try, in Sketchup at least, is tapering only one face of the four in each leg.
My suggestion is to taper the inside that goes along the longest side. Then the two outside faces and the face that the shelf attaches to are straight.I just like the way this looks. I could model it for you if you attach the Sketchup file.
Also, play around with how high up or down the shelf goes. It is good where it is but it is always helpful to try it on paper/computer before you start cutting wood.
6 May 2016 at 12:25 am #137042Thanks Jude, Matt and Brett. Because the table is so small in size I wanted to avoid having it look clunky. As it stands I don’t really like the looks of the 5/8″ shelf rail thickness I might make that a 1/2″. I didn’t try a taper on only 1 face in the drawing yet but I’ll try that to see how it looks. I do like this idea of a taper only on one face but it puts those short cross rails in an awkward spot if the leg is too small at the point where it’s attached. I think some fooling around with positions and sizes should resolve that issue though. I really like sketchup and it comes easy to me so it’s quick to try a bunch of different things.
I’ve also been playing around with the apron size. I’ve noticed that a slight change 3/4″ one way or another makes a big impact on the overall feel of the model at least. How that translates to real life we’ll see.
Any thoughts to the tenon size on those shelf cross rails? I think whatever I pick without getting silly about it will be just fine for what the table will be used for.
Another consideration is what the table will look like “in action.” If you put a shelf down on the legs, will it look odd unused? If it is used and stuff is put on it, will it look like clutter? Will it make the piece look unbalanced? Will it add to a clunky feeling? If any of those are true, then you could replace the shelf with a stretcher. It gives the piece a certain look without inviting people to put stuff there. There are applications and scales for which the shelf might be preferable. Sketch some stuff on the table and the table in a location. It might help you to decide.
Also, if you want a place for stuff but don’t want the stuff to be seen, then you can change the shelf to a stretcher and put a drawer in the apron.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by Ed.
8 May 2016 at 6:16 pm #137071Thanks Ed,
These sound like good considerations I didn’t really think of. Sketchup has the model warehouse where you can grab real life items that others have made and put those into your drawing. I’ll incorporate that into my work to try out the look.
This particular table has requirements to it. The size being one (otherwise the tallness of the table I’d probably change to be a bit shorter). Specific request for no drawer. Specific request for a lower shelf for magazines and newspapers. This is really one of the first times I’m working with constraints that I must follow since this isn’t for myself. Usually I just go with the flow of whatever I’m feeling at the time.
8 May 2016 at 10:17 pm #137080I spent some more time fooling around with different things in sketchup and I just couldn’t get anything to look ‘right’ to me. I browsed google images to see if I could figure out which aspect was off and I think it’s the leg thickness. I was in the ballpark of 2.25″-2.5″ thickness on all my designs which would taper down to somewhere between 1 to 1.5″ at the bottom. The only design this looked OK in was the taper on the inside two sides of each leg. If I only tapered the 1 face that was on the longer side of the table or even the outside two faces the legs just seemed to look backwards.
My conclusion from my image searches was that my legs were just too big for this size of a table (might have been fine if I was going for the overall bulky look or a big taper on all 4 faces but I was hoping to stay away from that). I did a few designs where the legs have a max size of 1.5×1.5 and taper down to 1″ on the inside face. That’s .5″ over about 25 inches of leg so just a really slight taper.
I also just finished the bench stool project and I can’t get the design aspect of the arc on the apron out of my head so that guided me to what I have in the picture I think I’m going to go with. Also in PS’s blog post from today where he shows a photo of the two side tables (i think?) holding up the wall hanging tool cabinet with the same arc on the apron. The legs look like the same design as the bench stool and I just love that look. You saw glimpses of those small tables in the project series and I kept catching myself admiring them even though they look so simple. I don’t know what it is about them that I like so much I just can’t explain it. Anyway I’m going to get started and will hopefully post photos along the way probably in a new thread (except I always forget to stop and take a few while I’m working).
Thanks again for your suggestions I’m going to need more in the future I’m sure.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.