Look What I Did: Built A Table

So the hobby table has been pretty vacant for the last month, but only because I've been creating a gaming table. I've always wanted to make my own, with all of the bells and whistles, but without time, space and knowledge on woodworking and electrical work, I never really got around to it. Until I moved to a new place with the room for such a project. And so, I dove in. More after the jump.

To start, I used THIS tutorial as the base of my plans. I made a few modifications and personal changes to the design, but nothing extreme aside from the differences in our wiring, which I'll explain below.

One of the major screw-ups (there were plenty of those) that bothers me is I didn't sand enough before I stained everything. There are some rough spots here and there and markings from during construction that still can be seen. I also had no idea what I was doing when it came to staining on top of it all. For this portion, pay very close attention to the instruction in the video linked above.

Aside from the insane amount of experience and knowledge I gained from woodworking on this project, it was even more with the electrical work; I learned so much. For instance, I wired the table so that each outlet is independent of one another's functionality:

Google And YouTube "Wiring Outlets For Dummies" Until It Makes Sense Was My Strategy

So outlets and then of course bottle openers on each corner:

I got a cheapo RCA TV since no one on the internet or in local retail could tell me whether TVs these days can live their lives on their backs or not. I still don't know the answer to this, but I'll be sure to report it here if the TV craps out soon.
(UPDATE: The creator of the video linked above assured me that his table-imbedded TV is still doing just fine after more than a year of regular use.)

Finally, a huge thanks to the creator of the video linked above and to my roommates who let me occupy the garage off and on for the last month.

Until next time.