Wooden Stool to Olde School Tray

Wooden Stool-turned-Olde School Tray. Because I cannot choose one or two, or ever only five, hobbies at one time, and I live with like-minded indecisive creatives, there's a lot of stuff on tables that ends up on floors, beds, chairs...The tray is a powerful compartmentalizer, especially for competing scrapbooking, papercraft, sewing, or jewelry projects. I salvaged a wood- not particle board, real, solid, dark wood with a weathered patina- stool with broken legs from the curb on Dedham, MA trash day. I pried off the legs, peeled away tacky sailboat-print contact paper covering the top, and restored the wood with sanding and a few coats of coconut oil (smells so much better and is safer than polyurethane). Salvation Army Thrift Store stainless steel cupboard handles (in a grab-bag 6 pack for only $1.99) inspired a self-taught lesson in hole-drilling and screw-driving. Washers added a minimal detail to the handles' bases. Finally, a jarring wrestle with a ruler and electric engraver balanced out the off-center handles with an imitation pencil ledge.

This stool top will be a useful tray for beads and other tiny supplies that are apt to roll. It curves down ever slow slightly toward the center. The cross pieces of wood underneath also raise the stool-turned-tray an inch or so off the ground so papers can slide under or the tray can function as a display shelf. A nice place to put a sign-in guestbook at a party, perhaps.