An ammo can coffee table? Yup, you read that right! Not your typical home decor you see at the store, but maybe it should be. I had been asking for a coffee table for weeks because ever since we moved into our apartment we've been using a collapsible TV tray (not the cutest look).
This is how it went down, my husband came home the other week with SIX empty ammo cans from work, relatable right? My thoughts immediately went to, "How are we going to make these work in a small one bedroom apartment?" but he was already ahead of me and had the idea to turn them into a coffee table! My DIY and thrifty side was very excited to take this new project on. It took quite a few sketches and ideas to get the ball rolling, but it was such a fun project and I was so happy I got to do it with my husband!
First we taped down some trash bags in our living room to setup a workspace. This was my first mistake, this is definitely an outdoor task because we got paint on our floors. However, the way our apartment complex is set up there really isn't any space outside for that either. You can definitely look forward to a "avoiding apartment fines" blog post in the future! We painted these military green ammo cans white and this is the transformation.
We learned a lot during this process! For instance, having tarps was way better than trash bags. We used acrylic paint, which did not seem to be the best so we switched to spray paint and it was so much easier and faster!! We also learned we need to work on our communication and I definitely need work on my control issues. Basically you win some and you learn some!
The next step, we measured the tops of all the ammo cans and got 1x4s from Home Depot cut to that specific length. I am so grateful I can have them cut the wood in the store because I would not be able to do that at home. I stained each plank with a walnut stain for the coffee table top, then lined then up and used wood glue to hold them together. The last step was to screw top to the ammo can lids. This was the final product and it is so cute, we love the way it turned out!
Another perk to this ammo can coffee table is that the lids are still detachable so the table serves as storage as well!
Supplies:
Ammo cans (you can easily switch these out with wooden crates)
White paint (or any color of your choice)
Wood planks (we got 1x4s cut at 27" and used 5 planks)
Screws/drill
I haven't done many big DIY projects like this so I'm sure I made it more complicated than it needed to be, but at the end of the day or weeks we got it done! I'm so grateful my husband puts up with me when I get tunnel vision on what I imagine and expect it all to be in my head!! Let me know what you think of our creation and If you're feeling inspired to create something of your own!
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