Layered Thoughts

So over the weekend my roommates and I picked up a huge brand new corner couch for our living room and that forced us to completely rearrange things to make everything fit. When we did that, we realized we needed a table to go between the recliner and the end of the couch. You know what that means? Time to play with some free shit from the post office!

Backstory

A while back, I learned that you can go the USPS website and order a lot of mailing materials for free. A lot. For free. No shipping or handling. They bring you hundreds of boxes and envelopes for free. To your doorstep. Excellent.

So I’ve had these boxes in my closet for a  while now. I built a coffee table a while back but it has since been trashed pretty good from parties and get togethers and spilled drinks so we’re going to toss it. But today presented a perfect instance for building yet another piece of furniture out of free boxes from the post office.

What You Need To Build the Side Table

To build this side table, you will need:

(10) Assembled Priority Mail Shipping Boxes

 

(1) Tape Gun For Boxes

Another option instead of the tape gun is that you can use free USPS stickers. That’s a little bit more tedious and since it’s just a damn cardboard table, don’t worry about it and just gun it.

Building the Table

First of all, once you have all of the boxes put together, pair them off into sets of two and tape them together along the wide side with a strip of tape from the gun that wraps all the way around the seam, like in this picture:

Next, put together an “H” shape with the sets of two boxes, with the long side down, like in this picture:

You’re just going to have to eyeball to make sure things are even because if you even think to use a ruler on cardboard table then you’re trying too hard. I did this step by lining things up and then taping along the tops to get things held together, then I added strips along the inside joints to prevent twisting and to add some strength, like so:

Now, once you have that bottom part put together, tape together the remaining two sets of boxes to make a 2×2 top for your table:

After that, you’re going to attach that top of the table to the bottom. The best way to do that is flip the top of the table over and center the bottom on it, then use 6″ strips of tape to secure the bottom all the way around to the top of the table:

Once that’s done, chances are when you flip the thing over it’s going to rock around because it isn’t perfectly aligned. The best way to fix that is to stand the table up and slide pieces of cardboard under the legs as shims to level it out, then flip it back over and tape on those shims like so:

Now you should be good to go! Here’s what mine looks like in my house now, not bad for being free and taking 20 minutes:

These tables are surprisingly strong, most likely because the post office has to use tough boxes to protect what’s being shipped. Regardless, it’s a cool and tacky little way to add a conversation piece to your living room.