Simple, Cheap and Easy Console Table

Simple and cheap...yes.  MOSTLY easy.  Well, building it was easy-ish.  Would have been easier with a good workbench or a partner for parts of it.  I had a lot of scrap lumber from the headboard, so my shopping list was small. Except for the CIRCULAR SAW I bought myself!!  Go go Team Nine Fingers!  I also paid extra for the 'select' 1x12 for the top, since I was going to stain rather than paint - Husbeast has a disdain of painted wood.  How he survives our house is beyond me - all trim and doors are painted white.  Well, except the exterior of the front door which went from sickly-mauve to near-Tardis blue this summer (gods, it made me want to build a Tardis garden shed sooo badly.  I could position it in the back corner of the yard so it would hide the giant cable box..and be beautiful.  With a remote to flick the light on at night...oh, even better - a light-sensing switch that turns it on automagically!)(and then maybe David Tennant would pop out of it at random intervals.  Yes, I'm still stuck on the 10th Dr.)

Ok, back to the table!  here's what I ended up with after the building stage -

Nice, no?  I know!  Here's what I did differently and other thoughts on the build -

•  I combined steps 3 & 6 into step 3.  Why not add the top side support at the same time as the bottom one?
• Step 4, the stretcher, was BRUTAL with one person and no tricked out crazycool workbench or clamping system or SOMETHING..a nailgun?  I have no idea.  Whatever I needed, I didn't have it.  I got grey hair doing that step.
• Step 5 was the part where I really took a critical eye/hand over the legs and stretcher and picked which side was the front.  I wanted to avoid any nail holes on the front/top as much as I could.  It's good to choose sides - I am not Switzerland!
• Now, to avoid nail holes on top and any need to use wood filler where it will be most visible, I did steps 9 & 10 a bit different.  I nailed the breadboard pieces (from 10) to the ends of the base top (step 9), nailing from underneath using 1 1/4" nails (and glue of course..always assume glue!).  THEN I completed step 9, nailing it to the legs and apron, as directed in Ana's plan. 
• The last step, 11 - I nailed from underneath as well, glue & 1 1/4" nails, clamped really well, edges flush.
• Circular Saw - LOVE!  BLUV!  So much.  Scary though.  Loud!  The first time I fired it up I had Husbeast and Little Boy out there (at a safe distance) to watch me hopefully not cut my fingers off and gouge it into my thigh or something.  (I reminded Husbeast to call 911 instead of 999 FROM THE HOUSE PHONE, not his cell, just in case)  I had some scrap 2x4 I was cutting and LB kept saying how Mommy Has A Loud Circle Monster.  He spent the next few days randomly obsessing over it.  We really stressed how dangerous they can be so I fielded a lot of questions about losing fingers and why can't they grow back.  He really thinks I'm stupid or something because he always replied to my 'No, they don't grow back' with kind of an eye-roll-sneery-smile-shrug and 'YEAH they CAN!'.  One thing I found really helpful cutting the 1x12 was to nail on a piece of scrap 1x2 as a saw guide I could just butt the foot up against to get a really super square cut.

Finishing is going to be a whole 'nother post because it's really doing my head in.  I have stood in the garage with this damned table and actually asked it - 'Are you taking the Mickey?  Are you extracting the urine?!!!'