Simple Plant Stand With Removable Table Top

Amanda
by Amanda
8 Materials
$10
1 Hour
Easy

I recently made a plant stand as a Mother’s Day gift. I wanted something versatile, that did not take up a ton of space, and that could easily be moved around as needed. Here is what I came up with:

For this plant stand table, I used:

-6 2x2x36” pressure treated deck balusters, $0.80 each (if making for inside, DO NOT use pressure treated!)

-16 pocket hole screws (if you don’t have a pocket hole jig, you can use regular screws and attach a different way, I’ll explain later)

-a small scrap of plywood (we used a scrap of 5/8” plywood)

-2 dowel pins (we used 3/8”)

-paint and/or stain


Tools used:

-miter saw (any wood saw will do)

-jigsaw

-drill with bits (I used a 3/8” for the dowels, and my pocket hole but)

-pocket hole jig (optional)

Step 1: decide on your exact table dimensions and cut your boards. I left the 4 legs at 36”, and the four cross beams are each 12”

Mark center on your cross beams, and then the width of your boards, centered over the line. You will be cutting halfway through all four cross beams.

Using a jig saw or something similar, carefully cut the outer edges of your marks.

To cut the halfway line, I like to cut several notches and break them at the line with a small chisel or flat head screwdriver until there is an opening as wide as the jigsaw blade.

Finish cutting the halfway line. If you need to clean up where you chiseled our pieces, you can turn the jigsaw around and smooth it out.

It’s okay if it doesn’t look perfect; you aren’t going to see the inside of the cut section, but you want to make sure your pieces fit together.

Fit your cross pieces together, two are the top, and two are the bottom. They should fit snugly, but you should still be able to separate them easily.

Drill pocket holes (set for 1.5” material) along the bottom side of each cross. This should be the notched side of two pieces, and the un-notched side of two. It helps keep them from getting mixed up if you leave them in a cross while drilling. You should have two holes on each end of every cross piece.


*If you do not want to do pocket holes, you can drive regular screws in through the outside of your stand legs instead.

Here is what the bottom side of your cross pieces should look like.

Attach your cross beams to your leg pieces at the desired heights. I would recommend the bottom one be attached about 5.5” from the bottom, and the top will vary depending on the overall height you decided on earlier. I placed mine evenly spaced between the bottom cross pieces and the top of the legs. Make sure you attach both top-notched cross beams to two legs, and both bottom-notched beams to the other two legs.

For the removable table top, we drilled holes slightly larger than our dowel pins into the middle of the legs connected to the top cross beam.

Flip the stand over and place on top of your table top piece. Mark and cut the top to size. We cut ours in a square and then cut the corners off at a 45°. Mark the edges of the drilled legs and then mark the center of where each leg will sit. Drill partially through the top with a bit the same size as your dowels. You will be gluing the dowels into the table top, so they should be snug.

Test fit everything, then sand and paint or stain. I went with a paint-dipped look, and added metal pails for the planters. When your finish is dry, glue one end of your dowels into the table top. It can easily be folded almost completely flat by lifting the legs attached to the top cross beams out of the notches and rotating them towards the other legs. Depending on the size of your planters, you may have to rotate the legs like this to fit the planter in, then rotate back to stand.

Resources for this project:
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