Cozy Couch Edition Part 1: Cutting Board Turned Sofa Arm Tray

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No matter the season it’s pretty safe to say that a Cozy Couch is something everyone loves! Whether watching a movie, your favorite show or Sports event, we all need to place to rest our food/drinks and the all so important remote control! Take a look at how you can turn a basic cutting board into a beautiful Sofa Arm Tray below. I’ll also show you how to get the look with 3 pieces of Pinewood. (Come back to see Part 2 where I will show you how to make your very own Pom-Pom blanket!)

Turn a Cutting Board into this beautiful Sofa Arm Tray
SUPPLIES
1- Cutting board purchased from Homegoods for $5
2 – Pieces of Pinewood from local hardware store
1- piece of sand paper
1- Pen to draw straight line on back of cutting board so I knew where to place the pinewood.
1- bottle of Gorilla glue

Step 1: Measure width of Sofa Arm Rest

Step 2: Get a FINISHED Cutting Board and Measure it
Get a cutting board in the shape/size you like that is already finished from a store like Homegoods or Marshalls (they have a large variety). You could also use an old cutting board you already have at home. Make sure it is about 3-4 inches wider than the width of your sofa arm! This will guarantee you have enough space on each side to apply legs. Measure the length of your cutting board and have wood cut to this dimension or slightly shorter. The width of my sofa arm was 8 inches. I got a cutting board 11.5 inches wide x 13.5 in long. I will reference these dimensions moving forward as reference.

Step 3: Go to local hardware store and purchase a piece of pinewood (1 x 6 x 12). Have them cut 2 pieces the length of your cutting board. I had them cut two 10 inch pieces to fit the length of my cutting board (wanted them slightly smaller than the full length of 13.5 in).

Step 4: Sand Plywood Legs & Back of Cutting Board
Use your 600 grit sand paper to smooth the edges of the two pinewood pieces you will use for the legs. You don’t want to get any splinters! You should also sand the back of the cutting board where you will be applying legs to make sure the legs have a clean surface to stick to.†Wipe all pieces clean with dry paper towel to remove wood dust.

Step 5: Mark Cutting Board
Place cutting board face down on a flat surface, mark the width of your sofa arm across the center of your cutting board. I marked 8 inches across leaving 1.75 inches of each side to apply my legs. This was perfect because the width of my legs were 1 inch leaving an extra .75 inches of space that would hang over on each side. At the end of each 8 inch mark I drew a line on each side of the cutting board to mark where I’d apply the legs.

Step 6: Apply Legs

Apply generous amount of gorilla glue to right hand side of cutting board along the line that you drew (but not so much that it will spill over all the sides) and place the side piece directly on top. Make sure it’s aligned perfectly. I made sure to apply the legs on the side of the line closest to the OUTSIDE of my cutting board. This was to assure the 1in leg did not cross into the 8 inch width I had measured out. If I crossed into that space the arms would be too close together to fit onto the sofa arm. I repeated this step on both sides of the cutting board.

Step 7: Let Dry
The glue will dry within one minute, however, allow to dry in this position over night to be safe.

Step 8: Paint/decorate as you please.

I really liked how the existing wood design of the cutting board and the Pinewood I purchased matched so I just sanded the legs of the pinewood and left it as it was.

However, you can also stain it, cover with contact paper, stencil it, sky’s the limit! Take a look at the second Sofa Tray I made with all Pinewood to see how I decorated that below…

To Build:
Follow all the steps above, only replace the cutting board with a piece of pinewood to fit the dimensions of your sofa arm….

To Decorate: I used a soft grip non-adhesive contact paper. I cut it to the length and width of the crafted arm tray and applied the paper using a glue gun. Make sure you wrap the paper along the outside and inside of the tray, just gives it a better overall look.