Suitcase Side Table

Wednesdays I wrote a post about my not so perfect living room. If you read it you may have seen this strange looking side table. It kinda looked like a suitcase grew legs and decided to watch TV in the living room. It was my first attempt at turning this road side suitcase in to a new side table. I was so proud of myself for getting the materials and building it all on my own. Then I brought it in side and it could hardly stand up and was WAY to tall. It was a rough day. 

Luckily I have a husband who knows how to save the day and humor my strange little projects around the house. 

Here are some of these materials that I used for the successful version of our side table.
Materials:
- vintage hard suitcase
- 2 staircase banister rungs
- 4 Angle Top Furniture Plates
- 4 Wood hanger bolts
- left over boards

First: Cut the board to fit your suitcase. We chose to fit them in length wise to give the suitcase a little more structure. Use 1 inch screws to secure the boards to the bottom of the case.

Second: Flip the case over and attach the angle top plates in the corners. Be sure that all of your angles are facing the correct way!

Third: Cut the banisters in half, and drill a 1/4 inch hole in the side of the banister that you want at the base of the suitcase.

Fourth: Screw the hanger bolts into the leg. We used vice grips to be sure and twist them in nice and tight. But to keep from messing up the threads on the opposite end of the bolt we wrapped it in electrical tape before placing the vice grips around it. 

The first photo is what the bolt and leg should look like after twisting them in with the vice grips. 

Fifth: After doing the above steps to ever leg you can simply screw the legs in to the angle plates on the bottom of the suitcase! 

And thats how we successfully made a beautiful and unique side table! 

The height of this table works SO much better than before. The arm of our sofa is pretty tall so having it the same height makes it so much easier to access! 

Thought I would use this as an excuse to do a little fall decorating :) 

So here is my little side table pretties. Some of my favorite Instagram pictures, our engagement pictures, burlap scraps, and a little pumpkin I painted with Daniel 2:21 "He changes times and seasons..." plus a pretty cool lamp made from an antique gas can!

Check out the posts about the gas can lamp: here

And this is across the living room. I really like my mantel the way it is so I didn't do anything to that but I added some other painted pumpkins around the base of the fireplace! 

Check out my previous post about the pumpkins: here

So I love the new living room setup. Maybe I can finally do a REAL living room tour :)

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