A Little Place at Home, Building a Gaming Table - Part 4.

 

"When last we left our heroes"...

See now you know you're playing D&D because...erm...wrong thread...

"When last we left the table build"

That's better...

Last post, we'd gotten to the exciting part of putting the entire table together and making sure it all fitted somewhat neatly and wasn't loose or wobbly and would survive the feline attentions it would gather.

The next step was to stain the entire thing with Walnut Wood Stain so it matches with the rest of my furniture in the living room.

This was something of a non-negotiable from myself as it had to match, end of...

Staining in progress, the masses of cardboard at the bottom are to protect to wooden floor at my friends house where we were building the table:

Once we'd finished and moved it in pieces to my house, I began we the work of cat proofing the legs.

Being soft planed lumber and just the right size for a scratching post, I was worried that they would "have a go", and ruin the lower woodwork. A browse of Amazon procured a roll of "Sisal Cat Scratching Material" for less then a tenner and would protect the legs and give the cats something to work on instead (this was combined with a new scratching tree which is now screwed to the wall in the room as well).

There is meant to be a joke about Women wearing long socks here...but I couldn't find a good one!

Once we'd gotten the frames together, as an extra strengthening measure, we added these steel L brackets to the table.

This will pull the corners together and hold them (hopefully) regardless of how much jostling the table takes over time.

And here she is, built up and installed in my house. Not quite as dark as the bookcase behind, but certainly matching somewhat:

The magnetic handle in place as I lift the topper:

(I've no idea where the playing card came from).

And finally with the topper removed to prove it works!!!!!

We'd fed the cats recently before this photo was taken, hence the bowl underneath.

So, this project has been enjoyable, the pure unadulterated joy of just making something and seeing it come together has been extremely rewarding.

The fact that it's turned out better then expected by everyone is an added bonus. When I told Fraser about the gaming area being 3'*4' his response was:

"What can you play in that area?"

Quite a bit, but more importantly, I will make the hobby work for me!

I have a gaming table at home and (unless meeting up with friends) I won't have to drive nearly an hour to get a game in of anything now. I've already had a quick game of 40k on the table last night to celebrate my birthday (more to come on that).

I started these posts by talking about the professionally made table Fraser had bought and it now costing over £750.

In the interest of fairness, this table has cost me roughly £240 in total, that's adding in the extras like the Sisal and extra planks we needed after B&Q not knowing what "straight cut" means!

Granted not everybody out there has a good set of woodworking skills and knows what to look for, so I definitely saved the most money on labour costs, as we could measure (twice), cut (once) and build it ourselves.

But that's still a massive saving in cost.

There are some things which I would have liked to add, but would have been major headaches to either install or get working properly.

Example: A phone charger, either wired or wireless. Would have been useful for when people put their phones on the table surround.

LEDs, we did talk about it, but hiding the power cables from the cats would have been a painful experience, same as with the charger idea above, as the Furry Bio-titans will always find what they're not supposed to!

That aside, I'm happy with the table. A personal 40th Birthday present to myself, one which I will use regularly now.

I'll leave you with this photo:

Until next time, have nice day...