The making of a coffee table

As with all great stories, this one begins with one of the cardinal sins of man. Though I fear to disappoint, and rest assured I bear with my own disappointment that this story does not detail one of the racier vices of lust or grand theft, this tale sparks its birth from the green seeds of envy. But not just any envy, dear readers, no. It was envy of a 30” Toshiba flat screen HDTV with a 5.1 channel digital surround sound Boss speaker set and an XBOX 360. He obtained these items in a shopping spiral to adorn the barren void of our common room, but in doing so inadvertently mocked my nascent sense of electronic gadget ego found in countless college aged Korean men. When I moved out into my own apartment, I decided, no, I pledged that I would have an entertainment system to rival that which I had seen.

The pride of the Korean male coursing through my body fueled my search for the ultimate TV. However, it also fed my necessity to find the best possible deal on this new addition to my life… and thus my search on craigslist began. After weeks of searching and emailing I found the TV I wanted. It was a 30” Sony HDTV WEGA, editors choice in 2004 for best picture quality and bang for its buck. Beautiful. I met with Dave, who later revealed himself to be a CEO for a porn industry in North Hollywood, traded cash for the goods, and made my way home. A part of me died (a few hundred dollars of me to be exact) when I found that the TV didn’t work. Now, before you berate me for being an idiot (trust me I know), let me assure you that I did everything I could to remedy this tragedy. I tried getting it fixed, I tried taking the case to court, and I tried beating it senseless in hopes that things would start working again (the latter of the three after the form two courses of action were taken). Long story short, busted TV, Won very sad.

The TV thus sat, and many of you have seen what a lovely side table it has made over the months. My backpacks and jackets had grown fond of being carelessly thrown upon the electronic shell of what was a masterful tantalizing piece of audio video heaven. However, the bulky corpse, I found was too much for my apartment to accommodate, and thus began the making of a coffee table.

The project was simple, the front glass plate would make an excellent table top. Take out the tube, take the front plate, chuck the rest. No problem.

Unscrew, unscrew…

The front plate is actually a part of the picture tube…

Big problem.

Hatchet.

Problem solved.

I then ensued to smash away the glass from the posterior aspect of the picture tube (for those who can’t visualize what it looked like previous to my Last of the Mohicans’s moment, see figure 1). Shards of glass flew everywhere, but despite the adrenaline and terror, I threw my faith to my Rubbermaid dish gloves and make-shift surgical mask of toilet paper and continued. Actually the mask only came after I realized that I was pulverizing the glass and aerosolizing it… probably the 3^rd scariest thing I’ve done in my life. I taped up the bottom ends of the cut surface to don the guise of safety, and the top was complete. Too low for a coffee table, though. Hey, the frame has circular holes in it. HEY, the ikea lamp poles fit PERFECTLY into them. After much research online, I found that the lamp poles would be fit by a 19/6 – 18 TPI bolt… yea. Good thing Home Depot has everything.

Final product~

And they said it couldn’t be done…