diy side table made from cardboard tubes

Call it making trash fancy or easily recyclable furniture ... its easy, its fun

4 cardboard tubes (can be easily replaced with four wood pillars)

1 piece of wood for the top

Jigsaw

Wood Glue

Ruler and Pen

Sand Paper

Paint

“I source my cardboard tubes literally from the trash. they are used as giant packaging foil rolls, like kitchen towel rolls and the cardboard is left like the toilet or kitchen paper cardboard roll in the middle. ask at your local hardware store or similar stores of they have something similar ”

Just four legs plus a top

you can make the top any shape you like. If you like a wiggle look go for that or waves, I wanted to go a little down the arched route and just rounded the corners.

i had a lamp shade wich was the exact same size so I used that as a guide, you ca use anything round, a plate a bowl...what ever makes the arch you like

once I've cut out the one side I used the cutting as a template for the other side, this way the arch is absolutely identical

sand the raw edges after you've cut the wood into the shape you've decided on

next take your legs and try out different positions to get a feel for how its gonna look in the end

I went with 15 cm from the sides in and two centimetres space in-between the front and back leg

to get both sides even measure your space from the side (15 cm in my case) and draw a line.

mark the middle of the line to measure the spacing between the legs from there (2 cm in my case)

once that's done the only thing left to do is to glue the legs on with wood glue.

alternatively you can drill holes through the top and screw into the legs and fill the holes in the top slab with wood filler

or you can cut wood discs that fit in the middle of the tube, glue or screw them onto the bottom of the wood and slip your rolls on, use nails to hammer them from the sides to the cardboard into the discs (I do have a reel on this)

since my tubes had a decent thickness and therefor a good amount to cover in glue I just went with glueing them on.

put something heavy on top until dry

last step is paint. I would suggest if you use cardboard tubes to not use water based paint, some tubes get a little wrinkled when painted with water based paint. paints like acrylic or wall paint work just fine. I had mine wrinkle a bit since I used water based paint but once dry for 24 hours the wrinkles were gone, so maybe that's just a temporary thing and sets during the drying process.

‘the diy tile cube’ inspired by IKON københavn with a lil grout twist

what you need

Tiles GET THE TILES BEFORE YOU CUT OR ORDER YOUR WOOD!

MFD wood planks

Wood glue

Dispersion adhesive

Grout in white

Water based acrylic paint to dye the grout

“be clever and plan things out first pick your tile size, get your wood according to the size of your tile sheets ”

soooo first the Math:

Get your tiles first and measure them!

I used 30x30 cm preset tiles

to get a cube with 30 cm at each side its easiest to get to top wood plank 30x30 cm cut

then to make the sides you'll need to subtract the thickness of your wood planks - to make it easy I got 1 cm thick MDF

wich resultet my other 4 wood planks to be each 29x29 cm

because the one board going on top will add 1 cm in height - same with the sides, the boards are touching / overlapping at the edges wich adds 1 cm there as well

Get started - build the cube from scratch

just to make it visual: this is how the edges are set, the top board is at the bottom in this picture

to build the cube I used quick drying wood glue - this way the cube will be totally stable as a table - but not as a seating. if you want the option to use it as seating you should use some corner braces and screws to be safe

I started with one side and used this metal angle as a guide to get it straight

I let the first side dry for about 10 minutes before I went on with the other ones

brackets for extra sturdiness

I did put a good amount of glue since MDF is sucking up a good bit of it, you won't see it anyways so just slab it on

the Tiling

now its gonna get messy, so make sure you protect your floor and hands

I used one if these icing flatteners for cake, you can use anything flat spatula like to smear it on

start with the top and distribute a thin even layer of your glue

do not put too much - it will squeeze trough the tiles if you do

try to make it as even as you can - the tiles will not lay even when you have too much of a bumpy surface

that's how mine looked when I put the tile on

I started at one side and played them down evenly

press each and every one of the tiles into the glue (when you use preset tiles) this way they will look the most even

.

its basically the same for the sides

I would recommend putting the tiles at the bottom first and working your way up pressing them down, this way you make sure you have a straight line at the bottom

also another tipp: try to align the pattern of each tile sheet

the whole thing should dry over night to make sure everything is super secure and in the right place

now the even messier part: the grout

totally would recommend having a lot of gloves and tissue paper near by

to dye the grout mix a lot of your waterbased acrylic paint with a little bit of water

I had to mix twice because I ran out half way so I used the whole bottle of paint and about 2/3 of the cup filled with grout

do not mix wayyy too mich because you can't store this, once its mixed it will harden

but also not too less because it can happen that the colour does turn out different when you mix a second time

start with way less water than you would think - the grout should be a pretty thick consistency, a bit like soft putty

it does look pretty crumbly but once you touch it (with gloves) you'll feel how soft it is

The smudge:

take a hand full and massage it into all the gaps you don't need to be super exact for now just slab it on and have fun

for the edges: I just filled them with grout and went over with my finger to smoothe them out

you don't have to worry about making everything super smooth at first, just fill all the gaps and let the grout set a bit

once you got the whole thing covered you can go back to the top where you started and just feel if it did set a little, by no means it should be hard or somewhat hard just a lil set

once the grout has set a little bit you can take a paper towel or a sponge and wipe away the excess grout left on the surface

the grout will smear the paint a bit so the tiles will still look a bit yellow

for now its just about getting most of the 'too much grout' off

once you have wiped away the majority of the grout it will look something like that

I went ahead and went over every gap with my finger tip to soothe it out because the wiping can leave the grout a bit rough at some places

now let this set for another 10ish minutes

the grout should be somewhat pre set now - when you wipe it it shouldn't stain and smear anymore

that's the point when you can take a damp (just barely damp) paper towel to wipe away the last it of colour sheen from the tiles

once that's done your cube should look nearly finished

the grout is not completely hardened at this point so if you see some imperfections you can still Smoothie them out

let this dry over night again

you totally can make bigger ones or a tray - a whole table ... options are endless.

if you can't find cute tiles it could be an option just go with some ugly ones you like the shape of and paint the whole thing with tile paint once its finished

tiles are fun - you can do a loooooot with them

DIY wonky mirror

basically my first ever diy post moved from the old blog over here

What you need:

relatively thin wood ( has to be a little bigger than your mirror,

you can use 5mm mdf as well)

frameless mirror

jigsaw

drill

sand paper

really strong glue (for ex epoxy based)

paint

pen

Wood options:

“you can easily switch out ply wood with MDF it has lower tendencies to crack and is way cheaper”

Get started

first step: lay the mirror down on your piece of wood (mine is leftover from another mirror, that's why its already half way wavy)

mark where your mirror sits really visible to have a guidance line for your outer and inner frame

find your outer and inner shape

make sure the inner line is a good bit away from the outer edge of the mirror so there is a good bit of the wood touching the mirror (that's where its scribbled)

later on you will put glue on the scribbled parts

Jig saw time!

"to prevent your wood from 'fraying' get a clean cut blade and put the'good side' aka the front facing down"

cut out the outer shape

“secrets to woodworking: know your hacks and take your time”

for the inner shape: drill a few holes into the wood, a bit away from where the line of your frame shape is

make enough holes so you can fit the blade of your saw in,

cut the inner part out

you basically should have a frame now

sanding

sand down your raw edges and the surface if you want to

prime & paint

prime and paint the front of your frame, the backside should at least be painted around the inner edge, the mirror will reflect half a centimetre of the back, so make sure you paint these to get a pretty outcome over all

paint & let dry over night

Glue

depending on the size of your mirror you need to switch to different strengths of glue.

I made the first ones using strong wood glue, and they were kinda sturdy, but if you plan on hanging the mirror on the frame or you have a sort of heavy thick glass mirror I would recommend using 2 component glue on epoxy resin base, to make sure its stable.

don't put too much glue, especially not too close to the inner corner, it will squeeze out onto the mirror glass

glue your mirror on keeping it inside your markings

Press the glue

put heavy things on the edges of the mirror to make the glue bond extra secure, let dry at least for 24 hours

And to celebrate a few snaps from all kinda style variations I made ....