Books to Table/Nightstand

Craigslist was nice to me today. Ok, it was really some random stranger that was nice to me today. Even better! But slightly more awkward. Anyway, I got a lot of free books. Big hardcover books almost all the same size! Perfect! Not to read. To make into furniture.

free books

In taking apart our house to put down the wood floors we (read I, and my husband humors me) began to re-evaluate all that we have. While we’ve always loved minimalism, all our “stuff” frequently gets in the way. And my cheapness… While that is true we are committed to staying out of debt and purposefully living. Now to leave the bunny trail I started on… Minimalism. Purposeful living. I decided I didn’t need as many books. Our bookshelf is overfull and we didn’t have too much storage and… not much time to read. But that made me sad because I love books. And another thing going through my head was that we would like to have some side tables. Then the two converged and I remembered these. Two of my favorite of the many books made into nightstands/side tables I’ve seen flying around the internet.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/17917534/custom-stacked-book-side-table?ref=pr_shop

http://www.designsponge.com/2009/09/diy-project-book-strap-side-table.html

So suddenly my “too many books” became “not enough” and that’s what led me to be giddy with excitement about free books. Sometimes more=less, ya know? Eh? Whatever. I’ll leave it.

It was really easy to make it. I had two long canvas style belts that I put together by running the tail of one through the buckle of the other. Then I placed them on the floor beside my bed. I stacked books on top of the belts until the stack was just right. (I think I tried about 5 different styles.) When I got it all level and how I wanted it, I wrapped the belts around the sides and tops of the books and joined them together again and tightened. I put a tray on top of it all. I’ll feel better about putting a cup of water or something on the tray that the books. And then I filled the tray with pebbles. You could glue the books all together, but I’m not that committed to this table yet. Plus, I may decide to read some of those books. You never know.

I like the flying horse on the cover of the book in the corner. And here you can see the belts buckled.