Making a table into a trunk

When is a table not a table?

When it is a trunk... This one is for the sitting room to hold logs and coal etc.

It used to be this table, which was being given away on Freecycle (thanks to the donor.

Disassemble...

Here is the tabletop and wings that extend it.

The table frame has been deconstructed.

Here are  the legs and rails. Nice solid oak...

This table was hand jointed. You can see the marks of the brace inside the mortice. I'm assuming it was mid-20th century then, possibly earlier.

A good, chunky oak leg...

The top is framed in solid oak. The faces are oak-faced ply...
Here. you can see the mark where I am trimming down the panel width.

The wings have been bisected. They were joined back together later.

To create each panel, a rebated rail was added to both the top and bottom of the cut up table-top pieces. These rails were joined onto the panels using screws.

The rails are length of vintage tropical hardwood from an old cupboard door and gave a more substantial edge (and looked great to).

The main table top was also bisected to give two long panels.The top and bottom rails are already attached here.

I'm missing an image, but the panels once constructed had their edges mitred on the table saw, along their vertical edge, so they could be joined up.

In this pic, they have been mitred and are clamped together ready to create the basic box frame.

The joints were joined simply using corner braces. Glue was applied where the mitres meet for added strength, but its the screwed on brace plates that are holding this together.

The basic box frame showign tp and bottom rails jointed together with all corner braces in place.

Next a base plate of 8mm plywood (scrounged from a skip) was added into the bottom recess created by the added box rails. This was glued in place then reinforced with 25mm screws all round. An additional centre rail was added to strengthen the base.

Inside the box, the mitred corners were further reinforced by gluing in vertical corner pieces. This was rquired because the table panels were only 9mm plywood.

A simple plank-built lid was built from some nice reclaimed old old door jambs (originally from the Natural History Museum). This was built from three thick planks framed with a mitred out edge and all held together with screws through the rail into the plank, using corner braces on the corners and by direct screws for the central plank.

Some butt hinges weer added. I bought these as I didn't have any of the right sze to hand

The box was finished using dark tan shoe polish to warm it up to the reddish colour of the rest of the furniture in the room.

Here it is in the living room