During any upcycling project, working with older materials can often be tricky.
Whether you're searching for an exciting way to reuse a tired old piece of furniture, or trying out a fellow DIY-er's project for yourself, you can run into obstacles that force you to use your creativity and ingenuity to the fullest.
When Instructables user cabueckers found an upcycled door project that seemed easy enough to recreate himself, he bought the necessary materials, with one caveat — the old door he found was not the exact same style as the materials used in the project he'd previously seen.
Faced with this challenge, he dove head-first into problem-solving his way through to his project's end. And the final result? A stunning transformation that is perfect for any DIY-er's home.
Scroll through below to see how he turned this useless old door into the most adorable new living room centerpiece.
When this Instructables upcycler found an old, beautiful, discarded door, he knew it deserved the chance to live a second life.
He decided to transform this piece of furniture into an entirely new entity — a coffee table.
His inspiration came from a different DIY-er's coffee table project, which featured a door with five equally spaced panels. However, the door this Instructables user chose had six.
What initially seemed like a piece-of-cake project suddenly required more maneuvering than our DIY-er had bargained for.
The perfectly symmetrical table he’d envisioned was now out of the question because of the door's odd dimensions.
So he decided to prioritize his new table's height and cut his door so that one leg would include two panels and the other would only have one.
With his new plan in mind, his coffee table began to develop its own unique look and feel.
Once he cut each of his table’s three pieces, assembly began. Soon enough, though, more challenges reared their pesky heads.
Quickly, this DIY-er realized the door he was using was wider than his jig could accommodate.
Thanks to a little maneuvering, though, he was able to screw all three pieces together into a coffee table shape.
He then decided to add a coat of new paint.
He saved money by using paint he'd found at a local big-box store. The paint had previously been purchased and then returned by another customer. Buying returned paint like this can win you major savings!
Once the paint dried, his project was complete!
His living room now houses this fabulous, one-of-a-kind statement coffee table that is sure to spark fabulous dinner party conversation again and again.
Despite the minor challenges this DIY-er faced, his final product pretty closely resembled his inspiration, the coffee table shown above.
And thanks to those challenges, his coffee table had its own special flair and origin story.
Building coffee tables isn't the only way to reuse old doors.
Doors can make fabulous dining room tables, headboards, desks, porch swings, and so on. The list of possibilities is pretty much endless!
Sure, we all know doors as those heavy, hinged rectangles that seal and unseal the rooms of our houses, schools, stores, etc.
But what is a door, really? It's wood, metal, or some other sort of material that's been assigned a certain purpose, and shaking up those expectations allows you to build furniture that defies any and all preconceived notions.
Recreating another DIY-er’s project isn’t always as simple as it first seems, but this DIY-er certainly unleashed his creativity in the process.
What do you think of this door coffee table? How would you upcycle an old door? Tell us your ideas in the comments.
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