The Desk Addition

The last two old boards of soft maple from the scrap pile

   It has been a while since I have done a piece of furniture.    Especially a piece of furniture that we can use around our own house.    When I am working at my desk in the office area of  our basement I tend to follow the same format I did years ago when I had a real office job.  (Currently I do have a couple of volunteer jobs, but a real job is one that has a connection to what is called a "Pay Check")   First I have my little day planner as to what needs to be accomplished for the day.  Then I go through the pile of bills, papers, and the various mailings that have accumulated and I form my "DAG"  order of to-do piles. 

Added an outside trim of hard maple

   What sometimes happens when I am sifting through the mail is that I will find last week's issue of some wood magazine that had arrived in the mail box.    At that point there occurs a senior moment where suddenly the urgency of the "to-do" piles is left for another day and the immediate focus is on this article that displays some new jig.  A jig that makes some difficult wood working task slightly easier to do.   Next,  I am pushing the paper piles aside and jumping on the computer wanting to get online to see what a jig like that one in the magazine would cost.  (Usually too much, but my birthday is not that far away and who knows?) 

The completed table top displayed by my wood shop mistress

  Of course, as the day moves along the paper piles are forgotten.  They are still in that same kind of organized structure that I love.  The "DAG" brain has now moved on to thinking of  something that will make the rest of this day a little more fun.   (Those piles will be there tomorrow - Okay?)
   Pam has learned early on that those piles are sacred.    You don't want to change the layout of those piles.    There is a secret code as to which pile needs a quick review and which pile could be destined to end up in the recycle bin.    It's a code that only I know. 

Adding four legs on collapsible brackets. 

       
So, after many days have past, I find that I need to set up our wobbly card table next to the desk in order to have some additional space to pile more of my organized papers.   It is hard to explain.    It's sounds a  little weird, but truly there is a system.     If someone (say like someone's wife) wants to do a little housekeeping and tries to reorganize those piles  -  oh my gosh  - it could wreck the whole system. 
     One day Pam suggested that our card table was starting to look a little beat up.     She suggested that maybe I should think about building a smaller side table with collapsible legs,  That table could set next to the desk when needed and taken down when we had company leaving the extra space for the grand kids to play.   If the table was mobile enough, maybe we could even set it in the dinning room when the whole gang was home for dinner. 
      I liked her idea.

Picture of a collapsible table leg bracket. 

   
     In fact I liked her idea so much I pushed all my paper piles aside and got on the internet to research what kind of collapsible brackets are out there that one could be used to make this whole thing work.

Four tapered table legs folded down to store table

  
   I found some brackets online and ordered four that would work well for this project. 
The brackets were a little spendy, but they fold down nicely and can be locked into place when they are in the upright position.  They work great.
   This turned out to be a fun little project.  There were no plans, we just threw it together and I think it will be a handy table to work on.   Anybody out there need a beat up old card table???

This is not exactly what I had in mind for this table when I built it.....