As we continue to furnish our home, we were looking for a side table for our reading corner, and we were excited to come across a workshop with Triple Eyelid to make one out of recycled pallet wood!
The side table is made of a base IKEA side table metal frame, we worked mainly on the wooden top with recycled pallet wood.
I really appreciated that this project makes use of recycled pallet wood – Triple Eyelid uses the old pallets that are collected back from industrial usage, and processes them (removing nails, drying them out etc.), so they become input material to be transformed into something new!
The cosy workspace has an area displaying the various wood projects that can be done – it was a really welcoming space that they are continuing to upgrade (heard some ideas of adding some recreational features for workers in the company to chill out)!
Most of the first part of the workshop involved the use of some bigger tools, and we adjourned to another workshop section of the building to get that done:
I am not great with names of tools, but I think this is a table saw (?) – you can see the spinning blade that slices the piece of wood we push through to trim it to the right width (that plastic contraption looks like a little snake to me :D). Saw (the horror movie) came to mind when we were being briefed on safety procedures to abide to! You can also see pallets stacked in the background – I think those are new ones to be delivered for industrial use, and will come back to be recycled later on.
Forgot the name of this saw, but we used it to get the correct 45 degree angles at the ends, so that we can piece the chevron pattern together
We stained the wood pieces in white and a darker brown to get to the lovely chevron pattern
Once we got the right colours, we trimmed the wood into the right sizes, and stuck them on with glue, and used a nail gun to make sure they stay firmly in place.
We filled the nail hols with some putty, and also used a sanding machine to try to make the surface smoother / more even (the pallet wood pieces were not exactly the same height) – we were using this as a side table so we were ok with it not being perfectly flat (as long as it can hold stuff). Plus, sanding takes time, and when we sand, it takes the stain / colour off the wood, and we’d have to touch up more later haha
Depending on the look you’re going for, sanding also creates a cool distressed, rustic look
Us touching up the staining (too rustic a look didn’t quite fit our home decor)
Drilling holes in the IKEA frame to attach the table top to!
Ta-dah – table done!
Us with Jackie, who guided us through the entire process 🙂
Actually, Jackie helped us finish the last few steps: attaching the top to the frame, and also applying a waterproofing coat on top of the wood surface. Thanks so much, Jackie!
Final product sitting in our reading / cosy corner at home ❤
Details of the workshop
Duration: it was originally listed as taking 2 hours, but I think in reality, takes closer to 3-3.5 hours to complete the entire project! (unfortunately, the workshop is no longer listed, but you can probably reach out to enquire!)
Price: I paid SGD150 for the workshop fee, which included all the materials (except the IKEA base frame, which the top is attached to), the use of the workshop, and the instructor guidance!
Level of “fun”: 3.5/5
This would be very fun for people who like to get to try different tools – I got to learn and use at least 5 different powered-tools in the entire process! Apparently it’s also possible to come up with your own design variation (laying out the pieces differently), and I’m sure some people will enjoy the element of design as well.
Level of difficulty: 2.5/5
There was guidance from Jackie the entire time, so it wasn’t too difficult to complete the table. I would say that the tools can appear to be intimidating when you first encounter them (the horror movie Saw came to mind when I first the table saw switched on haha), but the instructions and tips on how to use it properly were very clear, and with Jackie’s supervision, I felt safe the entire time.
Another more challenging part was to get the table top to be flat – we didn’t end up achieving that (it was ok given how we were intending to use the table), but would require effort to ensure the pieces are of as similar height as possible. This has implications on how much sanding needs to be done right at the end, and how much touching up is required on the staining (we were just slightly stressed trying to make sure we don’t “colour out of the line” as our pieces were alternating colours 😀
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