My cousin is renovating his old house and he found an old door that he had no use of. He asked me if I could make him a living room table in shabby chic style.
The door and the planks are over 100 years old. The plank was part of the floor and the door was to a small wardrobe in the room where this table will stand ones it's complete.

I thought it was a fun idea to make a new table from the old material that was in the same house before. It preserves some of the history of the house, but in a new way.

Here is the result.

Step 1: The Material

So here is the old door and the planks that I will make the table out of.

Let's begin right away!

Start by measuring the length of the base and the distance between the trestles.
Then cut out small pieces from the longitudinal plank to make it fit properly in the trestle. If the hole through the trestle is too large, it will become weak and the legs might break in the future if heavily loaded.

Step 2: Making the Trestles

So here is where you have to start to think a little. I wanted a table that is 50 cm high. A rule of thumb is to add 60% to the height of the table to get the correct length of the table legs. This rule only works if the trestle angle is 45 degrees.

So, adding 60% of 50 centimeters gives 80 centimeter long table legs in my case.
When you've cut 4 legs equally long, you saw each end 45 degrees like in the picture.

Now it's time to join the two legs to each other. The quickest way is to measure where you want the cross to be on one of the legs, and then put the four legs next to each other and draw a straight line through all of them.

When you're done measuring you simply saw out half of the wood within the lines. This plank is 5 cm thick so I sawed 2,5 cm deep. Finish of by rasping it to make in nice and even.

Step 3: Joining the Table Legs

Now it's time to make a square hole in the trestle to fit the longitudinal plank that combines the two trestles.
Measure how wide you need to make it, use a ruler to make it precise. It's better to make the hole a little bit too small, you can always make it bigger using a rasp. But you can never make it smaller again.

Then drill a whole in each corner of your square and saw between the holes. When you are done you should be able to lift out the little square in the middle.
Rasp the hole to even out the edges and to make a nice close fit.

Step 4: Attaching the Table Top

To make sure the trestle is stable you need to attach it properly to the longitudinal plank. This time I made it easy for myself and used two screws at the bottom of the trestles. It's important to put one screw through each diagonal plank to make it firm.

To fit the table top to the base I used small wooden dowels. Drill small holes in the trestle and put markers in them. Then you simply press them against the table top after you've measured that it's in the middle. This is easiest done when it's all upside down.
When you remove the base you should have small marks in the table top. All you need to do now is to drill holes in the top and fit the dowels with some glue. When it's all done it's easy to fit the table top in the holes in the trestle.

Voilà, you now have a nice living room table with a lot of history behind it. And you can be 100% sure that no one has got one that looks exactly the same.