building a table

Our folding table.

It has now been ten and a half months since we made the leaf into full time RV living. When we first moved into this beast, I was so careful to not put nails into the wall. Not change anything from the original style. The plan was to keep everything just exactly the was it was so when we decided to upgrade it would still look 'factory fresh'.

We tried diligently to hold up pictures on the walls with Velcro strips and gorilla glue strips. Over and over again, pictures dropped and shelves fell. The real turning point came when Natalie refused to sleep in her own room. We bought a bunk room trailer just for her and she was sleeping on the drop down dining table. 

"Sleeping in the bunk feels like being in a coffin," she claimed.

So, one day while she was a t work, we ripped the upper bunk out of the room. And I MEAN ripped it right off the wall! The bunk room was suddenly a room for one, and our pristine trailer was no more.

Since then, we have added a fireplace, gutted the second kitchen to create a cat-box room and the latest project has been to build a fold up table in front of the sleeper sofa.

 

I found a picture on Etsy, yay Etsy!, and said, "I think we can make something like that."

https://www.etsy.com/listing/498632364/wall-mounted-folding-table-wall-mounted

And yes, 21 days, many, many, many arguments and a thousand and one trips to the lumber store during a deadly pandemic, we built a table.

We build this delightful piece of woodworking out of 1/2 plywood and 1 x 2 strips. It had to be thin enough when completed to fit between the wall and the eight foot slide with both the sofa and the dining booth.

Once finished, this table is being used for my crafting corner so it will also have several build into the legs to hold crafting supplies. My sewing machine, Cricut, vinyl and and fabric must all fit on the shelves. But, the shelves had to be removable for when the table was stored upright to put the slide in.

We stained it to match the inside out our amazing rolling home sweet home.

Testing and cutting inside and out. Nite, the table that I am cutting on is the table that we used in front of the sofa before we did this project. There was that table, another small table and a shoe rack, along with mall of the crafting supplies and machines that had to be moved every single time we moved this beast to another location.

We built through a 103 degree heat wave. Greg is cutting the width of a canvas picture frame in half so it will fit behind the table when folded up against the wall..See below they are still hanging snug on the wall where they stay even when the table goes up.

Bit by bit . Piece by piece. Day by day by day, a table is built. The cross boards on all three legs are built at different levels so, allow for the different sized machines and crafting suppies that will be stored there. the legs against the wall are screwed directly into the wall to give the table additional support.

The center leg is not actually attached to the table at all, but sits inside a goe system so it can be removed when the table is up. Then it is stored on dowel hoes drilled in the table legs attached to the wall. The furthest out legs swing down on hinges, and the legs sit snug inside the table when stored upright.

We used 1" x 10" and  1" x * 8" boards to form the shelves. There was room to use just 1" x 10" boards, but I wanted room to slide the shelves down when I am using the sewing machine. That way, I have more room for my feet. Also, keeping the shelves in two separate pieces makes it easier to remove them for storage when we are traveling.

At the moment, we have a couple small bits of board screwed into the wall  that when the table is lifted we put a screw through a hinge to hold it up. Not fancy, but it woks. The plan is to pretty up the wood on the wall to make it 'cute' and add a knob to a two sided screw.

That way we will no have to find a screwdriver or drill every time we lift the table up or down. We can just turn the knob to take the screw out. So far, the hinge just dangles freely off the end of the table. It does not seem to be causing a problem there, so unless I find something more interesting to look at, that may be the end solution.

Because the inside leg rests up on the cured part of the rv's slide, we had to cut the bottom of that leg on both the inside middle leg and front middle leg to match the curve. It was about a half inch cut difference from one side to the other. By doing that cut, we were able to get the table to sit flat on the floor.

Using the table to making s'mores on on fancy little s'more maker, because, sadly, we are not allowed to have a campfire in our campground. 😞