How to Build a Small Outdoor Table

Whether you're entertaining outdoors or lounging on the patio with a book on a warm summer evening, a small, outdoor-friendly table gives you to a place to put your drink or stack some extra magazines. By creating the table yourself, you can easily and inexpensively match it to your existing outdoor furniture. Use weather-appropriate wood materials such as cedar for your outdoor table, since your table will need to withstand moisture and wide variations in temperature. If you can only use plywood, you'll need to stain, seal or paint the wood.

Wooden board
2 old chairs
Power drill with 1/2-inch bit
Wood clamp
4 prefab wooden table legs
4 dowel pins
Wood glue
Mallet

Instructions

- 1
  Face the two old chairs toward each other, each about a foot apart from the edge of the other's seat. Center your cedar or other wood board over the gap. Select a board about 16-by-16 inches in size and 2 inches thick.
- 2
  Drill an inch-deep hole about an inch inside each corner of the board. Set the board aside.
- 3
  Clamp a table leg to one of your old chairs with the legs facing up. Drill an inch-deep hole in the center of the table leg's top. Repeat the process with the remaining three legs.
- 4
  Dab a dot of glue on the end of a dowel pin, each of which should be one-half inch in diameter and 2 inches long. Insert the pin into one of the holes in the bottom of the flat wooden piece. Repeat the process with the other dowels until each hole has a dowel emerging from it. Dab glue on these emerging ends.
- 5
  Fit the wooden legs' drilled holes over the emerging dowels and push down. The dowels should disappear inside the table legs. Gently pound the bottom of the legs with the mallet to work the dowels completely inside.

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