Mix and Match Sewing Table

The goal was to build a solid sewing table with an ample work surface - from a mix of kitchen cabinet construction leftovers, cutoffs, and other scrap I had in the shed. Of course, I had to put cabinets in the laundry room first, naturally. But after building kitchen cabinets and 2 vanities from scratch, I cheated and bought used cabinets for our laundry room to save time. That purchase for $500 yielded these sapele and birch ply cabinets (which I had to modify to fit and work for us): 

Intervening cabinet project.

The purchase also included another low sapele cabinet and a heavy 1 1/2" x 23" x 10' solid maple countertop - with a bar sink at one end. I cut off the gross the bar sink, dug out busted fasteners, sanded top and bottom, rounded over all corners and refinished this weighty countertop. It looked good, fit in our space, but I had nothing to support it. 

Maple countertop - from above. 

So I came up with these base units. Legs are 8/4 maple scrap, drawer rails are also maple. Drawer fronts are quality 3/4" beech ply and drawer boxes are mixed cheapo 3/4" birch ply.  

The external frames are mortise and tenoned and the drawer rails are 3/4" solid maple that are notched into the legs of the frame. No fancy drawer slides on this project. The drawers are simply not used that often, so wear should not be an issue. 

Surely you could replace the frames with all plywood, but that is not much fun. Here is what the frames looked like during construction. The upper rails of the frames are screwed to the maple countertop so I made notches in the top drawer rails to allow room for insertion of long screws. Finish is 3 coats of oil-based polyurethane. 

Conclusion: While this is a solid work table, many sewing tables have a well that the machine drops into to allow a for single flush work surface for sewing. I may still add a well, but it has not been a high priority item for my seamstress.