Mid Century Modern Storage Table W/ Built-in LED Lighting

This mid century modern inspired piece of furniture includes built-in LED lighting, a beautiful wooden slab and three drawers for storage. So this piece is built for a study where the person wanted to section off the room a little and have some privacy, they also needed some lights, and drawers to store things in.

First up, cutting plywood to size, we're using some really nice walnut plywood, cause we happened to have some on hand, but obviously any plywood would do. For assembly - pocket screws. And having these types of corner clamps is something I find really useful just to make sure everything is actually square and nice when you're putting something together by yourself, because it's like having a second pair of hands.

Next up - the drawers. Still using plywood for the drawers, and then we routed the sides so the the drawers will fit together nicely.

And to assemble these drawers, just using glue and brad nails, and after that re-enforcing them with some screws. And when the fit isn't quite perfect like here, it's nice to just use a block plane to bring it down a bit.

Next up - feet! So to bring this unit off the ground a little, we're using some walnut blocks, and just screwing those in.

Now for the inside of the drawers I thought it would be really fun with a pop of color which goes really well against walnut, so using this bright red, so it'll be kind of like a surprise when you open the drawers.

Once the paint dried, I used just a sheet of regular paper to kind of sand it smooth, and this little trick works really well to smoothen out any uneveness.

For runners we're using some drawer slides, and these are the soft close ones which are really nice.

OK - then the top! So we're using this beautiful walnut slab, and it's a little uneven so doing some planing here to smoothen it out a bit. Now it needs to get squared up, and for that we used a circular saw.

And this piece needed quite a bit of sanding to get completely even and smooth, but isn't it a beautiful piece! To smoothen the edges a little, some planing. And finally a seal coat of shellac on both sides and that really makes the grain pop!

Making sure it's positioned evenly, and finally a coat of some spray lacquer after a fine sanding.

To finish the drawers and the unit itself, some water based poly, which is nice because it doesn't add a yellow tone, plus it dries really quickly. And here's a little jig to put on the knobs, and we're using some oil rubbed bronze ones.

OK, next up the lighting section. So this is going to be attached to the back of this piece of furniture, and we're adding round cornes. I thought it would be interesting, to include some leather here, almost to make a shade, and I'm using dark brown oil tanned leather, cause we're going for a rather masculine, dark look overall here - well except the drawers. So cutting a leather strip to size using one of these handy strap cutters to ensure it's even, and then I'm putting on water based contact cement on both the leather and the plywood edge.

I didn't want to rely just on the glue to hold it in place, so I'm using some of these old fashioned looking iron tacks, which I think are pretty cool.

For lighting, we're using a natural light LED strip, these are pretty bright, and I want a lot of light under here, so I'm using quite a few strips. And then of course connecting them all together.

So to make this work, I'm using a 12 volt power supply, connected to the controller that comes with the lights, then that connects to a female barrel plug, and some extra wire connected to the actual lights.

And to keep the wires clean and neat, it's always nice to spin them to combine them, that way it's contained.

OK, so time to assemble, first screwing on the lighting piece. Then drilling a hole to move the wire towards the back, and that's pretty much it! In with the drawers, and here we go.

For a much better perspective of all the steps, and of the final build, make sure to check out the video!