DIY Water Table

I’ve had a few requests for the schematic for the water table I built the kids for Max’s first birthday, so I thought I’d put them up on the website.  List of tools is as follows:

• Circular saw
• Power drill
• Electric sander (or you can do it with a sanding pad and sandpaper if you don’t have an electric one)
• Tape measure
• Carpenter’s square

List of materials is as follows:

• 16 X 10/3.5″ self-tapping outdoor wood screws (for the legs)
• Box of 9/2.5″ self-tapping outdoor wood screws (for the table construction)
• Planks of rough cut 2″ X 4″ redwood lumber
• One piece of rough cut 4″ X 4″ X 8′ redwood lumber
• An old cast iron or concrete farmhouse-style sink
• Various PVC piping to make the faucets (I’ll leave this up to you…)

I chose redwood for the wood because it should be okay outside and getting soaked in water all the time, and I didn’t want to use chemically-treated softwood because I didn’t want the kids getting splinters from it.  But you can use any wood that will weather the elements for a while, your discretion.  The number of 2″ X 4″ redwood planks will be dictated by the size of your sink, everything gets built around that.  Here are the schematics for the table:

Basically one just needs to determine the dimensions of the sink opening and the rest of the table dimensions will follow from there.  The lip of the sink needs enough purchase on the top of the table such that it won’t move.  The only screws visible on the top of the table are the 16 binding the legs to the table top, all the other screws I put in from the bottom.  I put together the table top first, sanded it all down so it was flat and smooth, then installed the legs as a final step.  The sink should just drop straight into its opening when everything is done.  To construct the faucet piping system one can just have a look around the PVC piping area of the local hardware store, I put mine together using all threaded PVC pipe so I didn’t have to cut anything.  Here’s some more photos of the finished product.