Folding Work Bench

I built something else! I'm on a streak right now. While I was building the shelves for our master bedroom  I was doing most of the work in our kitchen on the kitchen table. Sawdust got everywhere and it really wasn't super ideal. I decided it would be better to do this type of work in the garage but I don't want to lose the option to park in the garage. Dad made us a makeshift work table out of an old 

desk when we moved in and it's worked great up to this point. The problem is it's built out of a broken desk though so it's not sturdy enough to do projects on and the surface area isn't really big enough. Plus we have accumulated more tools and garage stuff and the wall has gotten a little disorganized. So, the plan is to convert that whole wall to tall shelving units.

In my head I was picturing a fold down work table that I could mount on the left wall and only fold down when I was doing building projects. That way, when I was done we could just fold it up and Derrick could still park in the garage. I did some googling and found the perfect tutorial!

This is a youtube video of what I built.

 

She had plans that you could purchase for $5 so I decided it was worth it since it was my first big project and the plans included step by step instructions and a cut list. It was much easier to follow plans on paper then having to constantly have my computer up and trying to figure out from this video what I needed to do next. I didn't do a step by step tutorial or pictures because they are her plans and I didn't think that was right to copy her but I will tell you, it worked! The plans were awesome!

Here is my final product!

I made a scrap wood latch at the top to keep it locked in place when it's folded against the wall. 

The legs were the trickiest part. I had to use a jig saw to round the top of the 2x4s but my jig saw is on it's last leg and the blade kept falling out. I ended up having to hand saw it with this massive sword saw. It worked but it's not pretty.

And then I got the table down and one leg was sitting about a half inch off the ground. I'm not exactly sure how that happened but I had to screw a scrap on the bottom of that leg so it sits on the ground like it's supposed to.

It's a beautiful sight!

I'm pretty proud of this. It's my first big project that I built from scratch and it turned out just as I pictured! I did most of it in a few hours last night until my drill died, then I finished it up this morning.