I made a thing for board games and P&P

I heard some place, that you need to put the finished result first, so here it is!
It's my first post on here, but I've been lurking from well before I ever got an account. I have been without work for a bit of time, but after having browsed everywhere for a couple of weeks, I needed to DO something! I saw another user showing off how he made a table, so I figured I'd give it a try. I am NOT a carpenter, so a lot of things were hit and miss. If I ever have to make another table, I'll have learned a ton of things!

Right, how I made it!:

Wood is REALLY cheap. This is basic boards and 2x4. It isn't even that nice, with tons of defects and flaws from the factory. I should have been more critical when buying them.

There we are.. All put together. I used simple screws and made sure to pre-drill the holes so that the wood wouldn't split. On top of that, I used No-Nails on every joint to make sure that everything would stick together.

Next thing I did was fill in the holes. This is where 'I should have used something else' comes to mind. I used simple filler. Just plain white filler. Had I been smart, I would have spent a bit more cash to get the wood filler, that wouldn't have cracked, expanded and most of all covered up the really nice wood grain, as much!

I've then cut everything, and next comes the insane task of sanding it by hand.

I went and bought a prober sanding machine AFTER I had done all the sanding by hand. It wasn't even that expensive! I regret not doing everything with machine now, but at least it ended up with a nice finish!

After that, everything got a nice coating of wood oil 'mahogany'. 'Det bliver mahogni med tiden' as they say where I'm from. Yes, I drink beer, and I were also painting my house while this was going on.. Oh, and the table finally has a fiberboard 'bottom' as well! Finally starting to look like a table.

Having put on the sides, with small nails and No-Nails (Irony withstanding)

Painted the insides of the table, with a nice high gloss black, to make it look like a good contrast 'inside' the table.

After having read up on some sites that makes tables like this professionally, I saw that they put down some hard 'foam' board, to make it easier to pick up cards and stuff. So I went and got some foam boards (That were way more expensive than I had thought!)

Prober 'table-filt' as they called it in the store. 2x1,8 meters cost as much as ONE of the two foam boards I had to use. (A little salty)

Finally! Table is put together, and with a plain wood boarder, to clearly mark the edges and give a light between the black and red. I had considered painting the boarder wood black, but it would be too much dark.

Good luck out there!