Coffee Table with a (re)Purpose

Near the end of this past summer, I was inspired by this photo on Pinterest:

With limited space in our family room for toys and books, I thought that this would be a great way to store our ever-growing collection of children's books.  (Just today I had to resist a great sale at the bookstore where Baby J and I like to go for walks.  Only $1 per book!  Maybe we will go for another walk tomorrow...)

But I digress.

Handsome hubby was kind enough to build me a nearly exact replica of the photo above.  Here he is in action:

- Hubby first sanded and painted our wooden spool.

- With the spool upside down, he then drilled holes just wide enough for the dowel to fit through.  He drilled fully through the bottom portion, and 3/4 of an inch into the top (so that the top surface of the spool was still solid).

- With his dowels cut to size (we cut 12 dowels to fit around a 94 inch circumference), he slid them into place and adhered them with a small amount of wood glue.
- He also drilled a small pilot hole and secured the dowels in place with a screw.
- A coat of paint over the dowels finished off the look.

To allow for easy movement on the floor in our family room (i.e. to allow for more play space on the carpet), we screwed four small castors to the bottom of the spool.

Two of our castors are able to lock, should we choose to keep the table in place; however, we have yet to use them since we are always rolling the table around to make room for blocks and trucks and other toys!

I caught Baby J about to drop a toy into the hole the other day; masking tape was a quick solution.

And yes, I appreciate rainbow order and like to sometimes organize our books that way.  :)

We love to read....!!

I plan to link up here:

Tip Junkie, Someday Crafts, Skip to My Lou,

The Girl Creative, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Sew Much Ado,

Polka Dots on Parade, Thrifty Decorating, House of Hepworths,

My Simple Home Life, Homemaker in Heels, WhipperBerry