Stand on Your Own Feet

"Stand on Your Own Feet" is a simple, elegant, low cost DIY pandemic table. Why Pandemic? Well, after lockdown moving my office to home like everyone was bit clumsy without proper furnitures and space. When big e-commerce tycoons couldn't use their magics to deliver a table, my collections of old cardboard boxes came to my rescue.

It was always my dream to build a proper table with strong legs. Unfortunately, I had to drop my making in the middle because of expensive supply material like wood, wood glue, woodworking tools, etc. This time, with no choice left I was forced to make it with what is available at my home as a survival life hack.

Eureka!! Eureka!! I am happy to say I made it - "Stand on Your Own Feet" . This is not a RFT (right first time) project rather a RAL (Right at last) project.

Below mentioned are the tools & materials I used. Many are alternative supplies from actual materials, so if you have right tools with you please prefer to use them instead.

• 3 or 4 old cardboard boxes
• Newspaper or sheets
• Fevicol
• Adhesive Tapes
• Glue gun (optional)
• Paint brush (optional)
• Measuring tape
• Scale
• Scissors
• Cutter (preferable) or Knife
• 32 Screws
• Hinges (Small 8) or angle brackets (Small 8)
• Screwdriver.

Here we are going to reuse the boxes to build a strong smooth top with very less supply materials.

• Take corrugated cardboard boxes (minimum 2), Here I used my online order supply cardboard boxes.
• Remove all the tapes from the boxes carefully and unfold the box to sheets.
• Cut the 5 to 6 sheets using cutter/scissor/knife as per the below mentioned dimensions from the cardboards:
  • Table Top- 42 x 58 cm
  • Legs - 27 x 29 cm

I preferred the above dimensions because I wanted the table to be more spacious for my laptop and other stuffs.

Tips: I used my mother's kitchen knife for cutting, which pretty much gave me a good result although time-taking, however i would suggest you to use cutter for doing this task easily with better finish.

Now let us put together all our sheets to build our all new table top and its very own feet.

1. For Table Top:
   • Lay the cut sheet (42 x 58 cm) and apply fevicol all over it using a brush or cardboard piece.
   • Put the second sheet over the first one and now apply the fevicol on top of sheet 2.
   • Repeat the above step till the height of the sheets reach 3 cm. It took 6 sheets for me to get this height.
   • Place a heavy object (I used bricks) above the sheets and leave it for 2-3 hours.
   • Now measure the height using a scale or tape to ensure the height is approx. 3 cm.

Tips: If the height got changed, do not worry you can always add sheets above and adjust it to your preferred tabletop thickness.

2. For Legs:

• Lay the cut sheet of 27 x 29 cm and apply fevicol all over it as mentioned earlier.
• Put the second sheet over the first one and press firmly.
• Now apply the fevicol on the top of sheet 2 and repeat the steps till the height of the sheets reach 4 cm.
• It took around 8-9 sheets in bits and pieces for me to get this height.
• Now place a heavy object (I used bricks) above the sheets and leave it for 2-3 hours.
• Make sure the height of piled up sheets is always 1 cm more than the height of table top. This ensures sturdy legs.
• Repeat the above steps for the other leg as well.

Tips: As I didn't had bigger sheets of cardboard, I made sure to keep one base piece as per the dimensions and made other layers by putting some small pieces together.

As I didn't have proper cutters, the sides of my sheets were little rugged and uneven. So, I did a quick fix by covering the sides.

1. For Table Top:
   • Cut cardboard sheets with thickness of 3 cm and length as required to cover the table top sides.
   • Total length will be 200 cm approx if you go with my dimensions, I used small pieces to get this length.
   • Apply fevicol throughout the length of the sheets and stick it to the sides of the table top.
   • Allow sometime for the glue to dry.
2. For Legs:
   • Similarly, cut the sheets with thickness of 4 cm and and length as required to cover the sides of the leg.
   • Total length will be 120 cm approx if you go with my dimensions, I used small pieces to get this length.
   • Apply fevicol throughout the length of the sheets and stick it to the sides of the leg.
   • Repeat the above steps for the other leg.
   • Allow sometime for the glue to dry.
3. Cut paper into small pieces and use glue/fevicol to stick them all over the surface of the tabletop and legs.
4. Now put the table top and legs in rest and allow for the glue to dry.

Put things together now:

Before starting clean the work area and lay the bottom side of the table top facing you on a plain surface. Ready! Pick a marker and a scale.

1. For Table Top:
   • Measure 9.5 cm from left and right sides of the tabletop and mark the point using a sketch accurately.
   • Measure 6.5 cm from the top and bottom of the tabletop and mark the point using a sketch accurately.
2. Position both the legs on the table top aligning with the marks.

Tip: After this step I used glue gun initially to connect the legs to the bottom surface of the table top however it failed to give me the desired results. So I would strongly advise you not to use glue gun as the strength wasn't good enough.

All Set! Let's fix it!

3. Position 8 hinges at the distance of 9.5 cm from the table sides connecting the tabletop to the leg.

Tip: I used hinges because of the unavailability of angle brackets at my home. Please use angle brackets when you build your table.

4. Use screw driver to tighten the hinges to the table using screws.

5. Turn the table and check the strength by placing few weights on the table. I did strength check using corns, books, and laptop.

6. If the legs are stable, Hurray! The Pandemic table has finally passed the Quality check.

I planned to paint beautifully with colors however I didn't have enough paint at home nor did I have vinyl stickers to cover.

So I used a knitted table cloth and dressed it up beautifully.

Presenting you before my table standing on its own feet :)