Making a rolling coffee table

Over the summer, I got a Wii. After trying out the boxing, baseball, and tennis games on the Wii Sports disk, it quickly became apparent that I needed to be able to move my living room table quickly and smoothly.

The box I've been using as a table for the past four years came from Target. It's from a cube shelf system and can be laid on a face, for a horizontal orientation, or  on end for a vertical one. Because it fits perfectly with my couch in the face-down position, I decided I was ready for a permanent change.  This meant replacing the cast plastic press-in feet with something that wouldn't fall out when you picked the table up to move it.

A bonus would be actually being able to slide or roll the table. I decided this was optimum, so I went caster shopping.

I found rubber-wheeled casters that had both the standard rolling and locking wheels in the same size. I took home three rolling and one locking wheel. (More on that later.)

  I positioned my new casters in the corners of the table, covering the previous hole, and eyeballed a placement that would put the outside edges of the caster equal distances from their respective sides. With a pencil, I marked an X in the center of each of the four mounting holes. 

A quick zap with my drill and a 1/16th inch drill bit into all 16 Xs and I was well on my way.

I drove the screws that came with the caster into the particle board by hand to keep from tearing up the wood. I flipped it over and tested it. It rolled beautifully.

It didn't lock beautifully, and this was the source of my note above. With the one wheel locked, my table will rotate around that corner, but will not actually stay in place. For that, I need locking casters on two wheels. But since the casters I've picked have a fairly high rolling resistance (and so can't be moved by the big dog trying to visit everyone's legs), and the two-year-old in my family only shows up when out numbered 4-to-1 by adults, I decided to let it stand.

Voila! Extra space for bowling!