This instructable was born from having an abundance of 2x4s laying around following a recent eviction of chickens from a rather large coop. For some reason whenever I have made tables or items requiring legs in the past they have always ended up lopsided, or wobbly, or just looking unsafe in general. In an effort to make this work out better this time I used the internet and the spare wood from my disassembled chicken coop to construct legs for a table made form the same coop. I was originally planning on purchasing legs( I was quite tired of having terrible legs) so I looked on the interwebs and found an add for "The greatest table legs money can buy". They looked nice but they were $250 a piece and aluminum. Being a little out of my price range I decided I would just make them from my spare lumber. I think the resulting table legs turned out pretty awesome looking, and they were very inexpensive.

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

For this instructable you'll need the following:

Three 8' 2x4s
Sixteen 2" wood screws
Wood glue
Saw that can cut angles (I used a Ryobi)
Drill/Driver
Sand Paper
Stain (optional)
Saftely Lenses
Breathing Protection

Step 2: Make Your Cuts

For each leg you're going to need the following pieces cut

Angled lengths(at *15)

Two 27" 2x4 (these are your vertical supports, looking at the board from the side the cut should look like /______/ for both cuts). These are the bottom two boards in the image.
One 6" 2x4 (this piece will act as a horizontal center brace, looking at the board from the side the cut should look like \____/ ). This is the top board in the image.

Straight Lengths

1 24" 2x4
1 15" 2x4

Step 3: Sanding

I strongly recommend sanding before assembly. The first leg that I made I decided to sand afterwards and it made the whole thing that much more difficult due to the sharp angles involved. I used an orbital sander with 80 grade paper to take all the rough edges and splinters out of the reclaimed lumber, afterwards I went over again with 150 to make them really smooth.

Step 4: Assembly

Taking the two vertical support piece and the 15" straight cut piece, line them up on your workbench, or shop floor to determine where you're going to want to put your screws (or dowels). I eyeballed four points and drilled the requisite holes. Before putting the screws in to join the pieces I lathered the connecting surfaces with wood glue. Once those were together I placed the 24" piece on top of the vertical supports, drilled requisite holes, applied wood glue and used the 2" screws to join the pieces. They are starting to take shape. The last bit of assembly comes with the center support brace. Take the piece and place wood glue on both of the cut surfaces. Drop the brace between the V as shown in the image and make sure it's level before leaving it to dry. I used a mallet to ensure it was snug, although you could probably just knock it down with your hand.

Step 5: Now for Something Completely Different...

In this photo, you can see the result of a completely chance occurrence. I accidentally dropped a screw off of the top level piece while I was joining pieces, and this bugger landed standing up with the tip in the smallest crack I didn't realize my shop floor had.

Figured I'd share the happening.

Step 6: Finalizing and Personalizing

After the assembly and sanding (if you chose to do it last), you may want to choose to stain like I did. I like darker furniture so the stain I used is called Kona. There's normally a good selection of stains and paints at your local hardware/paint store.

The final product really turned out a lot better than I had anticipated, especially since the only thing I had to buy was some more sandpaper as I had everything else already laying around.

Thanks for reading my first instructable. I hope it helped and please post photos if you try these out.

Cheers.