Step by Step - Building a Miniature Painting Table

Hey everyone!

You may already noticed that we completely overhauled our studio.
We sanded the floor, we painted the walls and removed and sorted every piece of storage furniture and box we had. Here is the full story!

Now Raffa will tell you a little bit more about the biggest change in the studio. The new painting table. Enjoy and listen to Raffa ...

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What makes a painting heaven complete?
A nice painting table!

As one more painter moved into the studio, Erik, we really needed to change something about our table.

What we wanted:
- 4 big work places
- At least 2-4 guest work places
- New light from above
- Very stable
- In the middle of the room

We had no choice but to build a table ourself.
After some ideas we chose a big O-shaped table for four big places and two guest places.

In our experience a good work place has a depth of at least 60 cm and a width of 100-110 cm.
Our old table was 2,20m long and had a depth of 1,10m

For the new table we wanted more space so we increased the length to 2,40m.

And because we have a cover in the middle we even have more depth than 60cm.
60cm is the depth we had available because we wanted to use countertop pieces which have that depth.

The height of the table is around 84cm. This ensures we are sitting upright while working on don't put unnecessary stress on our backs.

So we went to the home depot and did a big shopping tour. We already knew that the project wouldn't be cheap, but as we split the cost by four it was still ok.

These are the beams we will use as the legs for the table. We bought six (even if there are only five on the photo ... )

The long sides of the table, 2,40x60cm

The short sides with 80x60cm. We had to cut off the rounded edge side of the pieces or otherwise it would have looked very strange so actually they have more like 80x58cm.

We cut out six pieces of 20x20x2cm wood pieces to screw on top of the legs.

Using a pencil we marked the drill spots. Four drill holes in the middle to attach the plate to the leg and four holes to attach the plate to the table.

The back side of the plate...

Long, strong screws were used to put everything togehter.

The finished legs for the table.

The next step was to attach three of the legs to each table side. One in the middle...

And two on the outer corners.

And they already stand, but not very securely, there are still the sides missing!

Now we turned the pieces around and attached the small sidepieces with wooden beams from below.

Like this!

We also screwed on some corner pieces to support the center cover.

We tried to fit the side pieces as closely to the rest as possible to avoid gaps.

That's the result so far, the veneer on the sides of the table is still missing.

Now the frame for the lamps was prepared. We used four wooden beams and added hooks to hang it from the ceiling.

We noticed the table is still a bit shaky, so we prepared two more support beams to connect the two central legs, that should fix the shaking.

We attached power strips to each corner leg so every painter has his own power outlet where he can attach his tools like the dremel / proxxon, hairdryer, etc.

The support beams were attached to the legs.

Using clamps, we fixed the legs before drilling the holes for the screws.

That looks a lot sturdier. All shaking and flexing was gone after this step.

We added one big, red switch to switch all the electrical tools and lamps of the table on and off with one click :-)

The cabling for everything was fixed directly under the table to avoid chaos and "Kabelsalat" (google that :D )

One of the two main power strips powering the lamps and airbrush compressors.

The cable to connect everything with a wall plug was hidden under a strip of metal so you don't trip over it.

Now we added the central cover, with holes to attach the lamps from the inside of the table.
That keeps the outer edge of the table clean of lamps. We also made sure the holes are big enough to attach and detach the lamps without removing the cover.

Here you see how the cover looks from underneath. There are still two more support beams missing that we added for more stability. There is still the central hole with the trash bin missing. We will add that as soon as the giant funnel arrives :)
We will be able to play basketball with trash to hit the center of the table... awesome!

Now this is how the table looks with a first test of a work place.
You can see the table in action in this video :)

We hope you enjoyed this insight into how we build our big table!
Maybe you build your next painting table by yourself, too?

It is very important to have some space and feel comfortable in your painting area, if you don't... change it!

Your MV-Team