Hairpin Leg Tables
A Project From 2022
FOR CENTURIES, when we’ve needed a surface for a desk, we’ve resorted to IKEA legs screwed into an IKEA tabletop. Just about as simple and cheap as you can get. Once the family room was remodeled, I wanted to upscale our table situation ever so slightly.
Online, I found a producer/supplier of hairpin legs. I’ve always liked the look of hairpin legs. I constructed my own tabletops from birch veneer plywood. I needed two surfaces, a larger standing height table for my synthesizer stuff and a smaller sitting height table for my computer. I wanted the tops to be substantial, so I sandwiched two layers of the ¾ inch birch plywood together. Then I wrapped the perimeters with a ¾ inch think poplar strip that also protrudes about ½ inch beneath the plywood for a total thickness of about 2 inches at the edges. They’re substantial, all right. And heavy.
Once we had furnished the family room, Karen decided she wanted her piano moved into it. The only logical location for it was where I’d just set up the smaller table for my computer. I knew this was one of those “sharing lessons” God likes to send me, so I disassembled the computer table and set up Karen’s piano in its place.
A short time later, it occurred to me that the computer tabletop was actually a great size to serve as an end table between the oversized chair and couch we’d just purchased. All it needed was shorter legs. Back to diyhairpinlegs.com.
I now had an surplus set of four desk-height hairpin legs … oh, well.
When we are vegging in front of the TV, Karen typically sits at the end of the couch next to the end table. I’m at the other end of the couch. There is no surface at my end upon which to place my nachos or beverage. What I needed was a small table I could slide up to the end of the couch, and then when it was not supporting food or drink, slide it back against the wall under a piece of art.
I grabbed those four hairpin legs out of storage and made a small top that matches the other two tabletops. It’s a bit high when it’s next to the couch, but it’s the perfect height when against the wall.
