I spent a good deal of 2025 working on this coffee table. I designed in it in the early part of the year and finished at the end. It forced me a learn a lot of new things and pick up some new tools.
Original design done in Fusion 360.
This was my first project in a long while milling up my own lumber. Unfortunately, the walnut I had was case hardened and despite being dry on the outside, it warped a lot when I resawed it on my bandsaw.
I ended up having to adjust some of my thicknesses from the design to work with the wood I ended up with after planing it down.
Getting the edges jointed was another learning experience. I ended up using a benchtop jointer, as I didn’t have space for a floor jointer. It worked ok, but not great. Next time, I think I’ll use hand planes for this kind of thing.
The legs had the most fine joinery bits to them, and took the longest to make. I did this to myself with making a design that was pretty complex in this area. Each one took about 4-5 hours to complete all of the joinery needed using chisels, a 90 degree jig, and my new favorite tool, my router plane.
After that, I made the arched side pieces with the bandsaw and a Japanese hand plane.
This was the first time assembling the whole thing, prior to adding the lift to the top and finishing up all of the edges.
Added some rounded edges to things and a chamfer to the top.
I spent a while testing and experimenting with finishes before ending up just using shellac and a wipe-on poly for a mostly natural look. I did use some amber shellac on the walnut to warm it up some though, which I think ended up matching the maple well.
Installed inside where it was intended.
Overall, despite taking for a long time to complete, I’m happy with the result here. It works well for our uses in the space, and the bottom shelf sees a lot of use as storage for my wife’s hobby stuff.