Let’s Build a Coffee Table – Kotatsu Style

This is a guest post from my oldest son. You know the saying ‘Apples don’t fall far from the tree’? Well, that is true of each of my children. All of them have inherited creative traits. My oldest has used his creativity in many ways; while in high school, he taught himself to sew and has created several unique items and articles of clothing over the years. In this post, he describes how he created a Kotatsu which is a Japanese heated coffee table. Here is his description of the process. You can find his original post here.

I made a Canadian version Kotatsu (Japanese heated coffee table)

As is customary, here’s the final product first. A kotatsu is a table with a heater underneath. When it’s cold, one takes the top off and puts a blanket on it, then putting the top back on, it becomes a very cozy hangout spot.

As I live in an apartment complex, I had to work in a vacant parking spot in the basement, hoping the owner wouldn’t come home before I was done!

I did some measurements on the fly in Home Depot. I bought 3- 2″ x 3/4″ x 8′ and 3- 3″ x 3/4″ x 8′ pine boards. Here are the pieces for the legs and main part of the frame.

I love these sound cancelling headphones. I barely heard the saw or sander and was able to listen to music as I worked. Which is great because I probably sanded for 2 hours straight!

The main part of the frame and starting on the legs. The frame will be 35″ x 37″. The two boards I found for the top were 36″ x 20″ x 3/4″. This would make the top slightly larger than base which I thought would give it room for the blanket to come out the sides comfortably.

The main part of the frame, screwed and glued. It is 14″ tall. Shorter than most coffee tables because you’re supposed to sit under it to use it. Being that hight means you can feel comfortable at it.

I wanted a Canadian folk feel to the table, so I got these screw caps to cover the screw holes with.

Here’s the box for the heater and the heater itself. I ordered it on eBay from Japan. Figured I should stick with what works! Thanks to Google image translate, I was able to read the instructions.

I built an internal frame to hold the heater in place, but also for support and to keep the blanket from sagging down. A ton of hole drilling! I’m glad it turned out pretty square considering the concrete floor in this garage in not entirely flat anywhere.

Now that the table is built, I am going to stain and finish it…again, apartment work space. Here you can see the two pieces I bought for the top. I like that there are two because it will be lighter for my family to move them around when adding or removing the blanket. I am using a water based stain and finish. It’s designed to be used on floors, so I’m confident in it’s durability. The stain was great. It only needed one coat. It was very rich. My wife wanted a dark, reddish color, so we went with Mahogany. Did you notice my props for the wood? Maple syrup cans???

Putting the first layer of finish on, I made the mistake of leaving a dab of it sitting on the wood. Either the stain wasn’t fully dry, or the varnish was very active and I got this spot. Needless to say, after that, I worked fast with the finish in order to not do this again. It’s not terrible and I’ll just use this side down?

Fitting the heater in and I have attached the cord to the table and leg with some plastic cord holders. I didn’t want it hanging down, getting all caught up. The last thing I want with a heater under a table is electrical troubles!

Testing the heater, and it works!

As the Japanese use 100 volts and we use 120 here in Canada, I had to get a converter. I read online that the converter needs to be able to run 3 times the wattage used by the appliance due to possible power surges. After getting some advice from r/electrical and r/electrical engineering, I learned that a heater like this wouldn’t have such surges, so 500watts was fine.

Here’s the table with the blanket I decided to use

And here it is with the top. The colors of the blanket and top work very nicely together!

Here’s my wife enjoying her new kotatsu! It is quite cozy under there. Yesterday 3 people were napping under the blanket?!

I later decided to add a board between the heater and the blanket. I think it’s the safe thing to do as the blanket was getting pretty warm.

Here we are as a family enjoying the warmth

Kotatsu tables are great for having a nice warm spot you can hang out in. It allows you to save on heating your home, especially in countries where heating costs are so high, like in Japan and Canada. The Japanese live under these tables! There’s even a term for someone who just doesn’t want to leave, a kotatsu snail! Thanks for looking!

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