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ELEGANT PLYWOOD

COFFEE TABLE

Making furniture with no nails, screws, or glue.

By Andy Lee

Photography by Sam Murphy

I’ve been interested in designing furniture for a long time. When I needed some of my own, I decided to build a set out of ¾" plywood. I chose to work with birch veneer plywood because it reminds me of Scandinavian furniture, which has a clean, elegant style that I love.

Having done a lot of moving in the last few years, I also wanted to make the furniture easy to assemble without any fasteners. To accomplish this, I designed each component piece with slots that mate with one another and hold the whole piece together. Not having fasteners makes the furniture easy to pack up and transport — each item breaks down into a stack of flat boards.

Finally, I didn’t want to create any waste, so each piece is cut exactly from a half sheet of plywood.

Here’s how to make an elegant coffee table with a few simple cuts, using a drill, jigsaw or circular saw, clamps, and other familiar tools.

1. Get the wood.

Obtain a 4'× 4' piece of ¾" plywood that is in good condition and free from warping and knots. You’ll also need four 1"×¼" wooden pegs. Different grades of plywood vary in price, ranging from rough particleboard to finely veneered and pre-sanded. This project will work with any type. I chose Baltic birch veneered 5-ply from a local

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