Do you want to make an original coffee table? Find out how by recycling various materials

There are hardly any living rooms that do not have a coffee table in the center: it is the focal point of the whole area, the one around which armchairs, chairs and sofas are arranged. Since this is such a fundamental, important piece of furniture, it is also often also the piece with the most attractive design. Given this, a coffee table is also one where you can dare to experiment with multiple shapes and models.

To ensure a piece of furniture is definitely one of a kind and unique in every respect, resorting to DIY projects is a guaranteed method: with a little specialist skill needed, you can create coffee tables from many different objects. Those made from various types of wood are beautiful, but there are also attractive ones made from recycled materials. Take a look below:

Sturdy wooden boxes assembled as a unit: a simple, popular DIY project which is easily customized.

A disc of wood cut from an appropriately shaped tree trunk: the raw wood with all its striations and perhaps even the bark left on the outside, is a rustic touch that can also be used within sophisticated contexts. Depending on the diameter of the trunk, you can have a coffee table that can be placed in the center of the living room, or even just a smaller one to put next to the sofa.

The legs you choose for the coffee table greatly affect the final, overall look - and then you could give a more personal touch by painting the wood in chalky white!

Endlessly fascinating and elegant are also cut sections of a tree trunk. And when they are bark-free, well sealed, varnished and treated properly, they can last forever.

What about a coffee table type whose base is made entirely of smaller pieces of wood pressed and wedged together? The glass top above only helps to show off its beauty.

If you want to use sturdy, natural branches, before painting them, you may need to treat them with specific products (tung oil or other wood oils) that seal the fibers, so that the wood will remain unchanged over a long period of time.

Bamboo canes all cut to the same size and topped by a glass sheet: minimal but very unique.

A vintage, large travelling trunk can lend an exotic and romantic touch to a room that should not be underestimated.

It is always a shame to ruin books, but nearly everyone has old volumes of some out-of-date encyclopedia (or, in any case, books of little value that only take up space): if the only alternative is to throw them away or burn them, then you could consider turning them into furnishing accessories!

For pubs, inns, taverns and other more rustic environments, wooden barrels are always an object that can be easily recycled and turned into a coffee table.

Cut vertically or horizontally, placed lying facing up or down - there are so many ways to use old, wooden barrels.

Have you ever built a coffee table as a DIY project?