Why Didn’t I Think of This Sooner?

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This post is sponsored by Wayfair but all our opinions are our own.

Ah-ha! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

How many times have you found yourself wondering that after you’ve completed a project?

No matter how many projects we’ve DIY’d, Jamie and I usually walk away from the project laughing our pants off and wondering what disaster we’ve just created. Or, saying why the heck didn’t we think of this sooner?!

One of those projects is our DIY couch sleeve and ottoman serving tray. These two items are hands down our favorite DIY project we’ve done, and we always get either requests on how we made them or wondering if they can just buy them from us. The best part, they’re pretty simple to make!

Every night, after we’ve put our son Greyson to bed, you can find us on the couch watching Netflix, blogging and enjoying a glass of wine.

As you can tell from the style of our couch, end tables aren’t the most practical since the arms are so high. We have our ottoman with our DIY tray table in front of the couch, but we wanted something a little more convenient by our sides. I know, first world problems here! Jamie actually made this for me and surprised me for Valentine’s day last year. The best part, he even engraved a little love note on it. It was perfect.

Now you can find us fighting over it to have it on mine or his side. Why we haven’t made a second one yet, I’m not quite sure. haha! 

Our serving tray is another must have, and we’ve made more than a handful of these.

These are super easy to make too. To make your own serving tray, start by cutting the largest base piece, the tray’s bottom.

We used our table saw to cut the materials to size. All the sides need to be cut at an angle, and we decided to use 30 degrees for these. After the bottom was cut to size, we ripped the sides using the 30 degree bevel again on the table saw.

Both the top and bottom are beveled to make a flush level transition. The other two sides were ripped to size so they match the beveled sides. Then a 30 degree angle cut was made so the straight sides fit into place.

When we had all the parts cut to size, we pieced it all together using wood glue and a 18 gauge nail gun. There are two ways of assembling the trays:  you can either glue and nail all the sides together and then drop the middle tray piece in, or you can work around the middle tray from corner to corner putting each piece on as you work your way around.

Once you get the trays assembled and glued together you need to sand them really well. Once sanded and cleaned off, they are ready for paint. We stained most of the trays but on a few we’ve painted them white.

How we lived without our ottoman tray and couch sleeve, I have no idea. The best part about the tray is we are constantly putting it on our couch, under the chairs to pull out for convenience when needed, and Grey even using them as his fishing boats. haha! We don’t ever have to worry about him breaking the trays or getting hurt, since they’re nice and sturdy.