Building a tile top side table

This was our entrance way before. I wanted a tall side table so we can leave keys and coins on it when we come home. I'd read about other people making tiled top coffee tables, so I decided to have a go at making a tile top side table for this space in our entrance way. 

 



Before

Here is a close-up of the finished table top. Its a faux marble ceramic tile. Its difficult to see in the photo, but its white with grey marbled lines running through it and it has a high shine on the surface which makes the entrance way look brighter.

The tile is 300x600mm (one foot by two feet) and it only cost about $7 at the hardware store. I built the side table base especially to fit it. I made the table 90cm tall (3 feet) because that is a standard height for bench tops and I find that height comfortable.

Close-up of the marbled tile top table

I won't go into detail about how I built the actual timber table because this was the first table I'd ever built so I am no expert at explaining the best way to build a table. I didn't follow any plans when I built this, and I mainly tried to use up timber I already had but I bought the timber for the legs.

I used dressed radiata pine for this table and stained it in a dark stain before spraying it lightly with an acrylic lacquer. I had started using polyurethane over the stain but it went it on unevenly and left some lumps, so I sanded that back off and went with the spray lacquer after the stain had dried and it was so much easier to apply :)

I used tile adhesive to fix the tile onto the table top. I did a bit of research and some people say to use tile adhesive since its designed to fix tile onto plywood etc, but other people say they prefer Liquid Nails because it can flex as timber expands. I went with tile adhesive because I'd built the top of my table with two slats of timber, allowing a gap in between them in case of any expansion. Because I am only dealing with one tile, its not as problematic as tiles fixed between several others where movement is limited.

I also stained the faded mirror in the same colour as the table to create a match. This wall will look much better once we paint it a calming dusky blue and add some colourful items to the table top. I'll add some more photos after we paint the wall :)