A couple of weeks ago, my father and I were at our local tobacconist, Kensington Tobacconist, having a cigar. Like any other week, we arrived before the crowd of regulars and spent some time outside of the lounge talking with the shop owner.

Among the variety of discussion topics was the potential closing of the small cafe across the street from the shop. Kurt, the cigar shop owner, went into telling us that he had an espresso machine that was just begging to be put to use. With the potential closure of the coffee shop across the street he saw this as an opportunity to gain a few new customers.

Kurt went on to tell us that he wanted to put the espresso machine in front of the window facing the busy street to catch the eyes of foot traffic walking through West Reading. Putting the machine in this location would require that he have a counter top built and installed. He asked me father and I what we would recommend for such a project.

Knowing that a counter top wasn’t overly involved, I offered to take a look around work and see if I could make it out of some scrap plywood and laminate. Something like this isn’t very time consuming and has little to no cost if made from leftover material.

The following week, my father cut a piece of cardboard and took it in to Kensington to template the corner in which the machine was to reside. The following week we got to working on the table, although it was now much different than what I had in mind. My father wanted to add a little more class to this fairly simple counter and made it out of some solid inch and a half maple that he had at home.

To create a splash, I picked up some galley rail and sprayed a coat of finish on it. That weekend I packed up my tools and my father packed up the table. We met up at Kensington and installed the new counter top. After about an hour we were able to transform a once empty corner into a coffee station.