Osborne Builder's Studio: DIY Oak Coffee Bar Station with Storage

Lay out your long lumber on clamps, with the edge facing up.

Begin gluing panels for the table base and drawer faces. We chose to use biscuits for easy alignment when gluing. Attach them together. Repeat this process until you have adhered all boards for your table base.

Tighten the clamps down on the glued boards. This will prevent warping or cupping as the boards dry.

Repeat steps 1-3 for the drawer faces and skirting.

Next, while the panels are drying, set up the router table to cut mortise into the legs. We used a ½” wide router cut since the overall thickness of the panels is 1”. The leg will have a ¾” standard mortise depth. To ensure your cutting bit has this measurement, mark ¾” on a scrap piece and align the cutting bit to it. Lock the height of the bit. Now, set up the fence for your router table. We set up our fence to allow for a 1” reveal on the front of the skirt board. To set the fence, use the scrap wood block.

Begin cutting the mortise. Make sure you set up stop blocks so that you keep the skirting flush to the leg. You can plunge one side of the mortise cut, and then run the other against a separate stop block to avoid moving the fence from two different positions.

Then, rip the panels down to their final width (12”) and cut them down to the final length of each skirt. Also, plane them down to the final thickness.

Go back to the router table to start cutting the tenons for the panels. We decided to do a ⅛” shoulder on one side and a ⅜” on the other. This will help keep the 1” reveal from the edge of the leg to the front of the skirt. The fence is set to cut a ¾” tenon to match the mortise previously cut.

Once you have cut all of the ⅛” shoulders, adjust the height of the cutting while leaving the fence in the same position. Then cut the ⅜” shoulder on the other side of the cuts you just made. Then, make a ⅜” cut on the bottom side of the skirt board (the tenon area you just cut). Make sure you do this entire process for the left and right sides of the skirt.

Round over the tenons with a sander to make sure they fit well.

Once you are sure of the fit, install pocket holes to the inside of the skirting. The skirting that will be attached to the legs should have pocket holes on the short sides.

Before assembling the table base, first cut out the openings for the drawers. Use a ruler and a writing utensil to mark the measurements and make lines where you want to cut

To cut out the drawer openings, cut a pilot hole into a corner and then use a jigsaw with a straight edge to trace the lines.

Sand all the panels to 220 grit on the inside and the faces.

Begin assembling the table base by first putting wood glue inside the mortise cut you made in the table leg. Make sure that the sides with the cuts are facing inward. Insert the drawer panel’s tenon joint into the mortise.

Insert screws into the pocket holes on the side of the skirt that meets the legs. Install the screws to firmly attach the board to the legs.

On the other side of one of the legs, insert glue into the remaining mortise and then install a smaller skirt board using its tenon joint. Firmly attach by installing screws through the pocket holes.

Repeat step 17 for the other leg.

Then, repeat steps 15-16 to make a similar piece. Place wood glue in the remaining legs’ mortise joints. Insert it onto the remaining tenons of the attached shorter skirt boards. Firmly attach by installing screws through the pocket holes.

Next, create the interior rails for the drawer slides. Cut the boards to the interior width of the cabinet and install pocket holes on both short sides.

Use a 6” spacer block to make some marks on the inside of the 12” panel. The center of the boards will be installed in the center of the panel.

Then, grab and level the interior rails inside the panel and center it with your marks. Carefully install screws through the pocket holes of the rail. You may need assistance to keep the rail steady and level. Do this step for the other rails.

Create a mark down the center of the boards to help install the drawer slides.

Before installing the slides, create the drawer boxes. We did a 6” deep drawer. Our sides and backs will be cut to do 6”. The face will be cut to 8”. Cut a ¼” wide channel into all of them except for the face.

Begin assembling your drawer boxes using wood glue and brad nails. The boxes should be composed of 5 wood pieces (the four sides and the bottom). Use a nail gun to install the brad nails down the sides of the boxes that touch one another.

To install the drawer faces, pre-drill 4 holes from the back-side of the drawer a bit away from the corners of the box. Then, align the back-side of the drawer to the face and attach them using the proper length screws.

Next, install the handles for the drawers. This step will depend on the handle you use for the project. Measure out and mark where your handles will fall. Pre-drill the required areas according to what works best for your handle.

After test-fitting your hardware, remove them.

Then, do a small round-over on the outside edge of the drawer faces using a sander.

Next, install the drawer slides. This will depend on the style and brand you chose. Our slides require us to align the center line we made earlier and then install the supplied screws onto it.

Install a drawer slide on the outside of the drawer box on the center. Make a centerline like you did for the rails and repeat Step 30. Doing this will ensure that the drawers are centered on the openings and aligned with the drawer slides

Test-fit your drawers. Make any adjustments necessary. Take them out once you start working on your table top.

Next, it’s time to work on your table top. Since our legs had a round-over, we decided to give our table top the same by first tracing the profile of the drawer onto a plywood template and sanding it. Then we put it on top of our table top, made the necessary marks, and cut off the corners with a jigsaw. Sand it until it's smooth and add a small roundover on the top side of the table top.

Pre-finish your table top and base before assembling.

Attach the table top using Figure 8 Fasteners. To install the fasteners, use a ¾” Forstener bit on the edge of the skirting. It needs to be deep enough to hold the fasteners. Screw down the part of the fasteners inside the hole you made with the Forstener. Be sure that the other end is not attached to anything.

Flip the table base over until the legs are in the air and center it over the bottom-side of the table top. Attach and install a screw on the other side of the fastener.

Reinstall the hardware (such as handles) and drawers.