Inspired and encouraged by the 'other' great post about the DIY IKEA Bjursta Gaming Table, I finally decided to take the plunge and create my own version!

Since I took a slightly different path (with different result) I thought you might be interested in how I did this. And I just wanted to give back a little bit this way, because the initial post helped me so much with this project.

Full album: https://imgur.com/gallery/uweCufu

First, let's see the start and finish:

As the other post stated, the Bjursta is wonderful for this project, because it already has a lowered frame to hold the extra middle pieces in case you want to increase the table size. And I like to be able to cover the table, because I can leave a long campaign game in there and then play in between on top of the lids (or just use it as a desk). Also I have young kids and I can keep my stuff in the middle of the game this way without worrying about my kids messing it up. It's not my dining table btw, it's in my 'office' (heh).

Unfortunately, IKEA doesn't produce these table anymore. Fortunately, I easily found a bunch of them on the second hand market (in Holland).

I'm not going to repeat all 39 images here, but I can summarize the steps to create the table.

• Obviously find yourself a Bjursta. Remove the extra lids and unscrew the fixed lids and remove the metal sliders from the guide rail as well as the two screws in the middle of the long sides.

• Buy yourself a nice board. It should not be too thick, because the table itself isn't very deep already. I went for a 4mm board. It may feel a little wobbly, but once you put it down it's a lot better. That's also because in my version the board is support in the corners by the table itself (no extra wood pieces needed in this version).

• Remove one of the metal corner plates and use them to draw the corners on the board. Then saw away the corners. After initially sawing the entire board table and then cutting away the corners, if your board is still too wide or long, use a hand plane to reduce the side a bit. Unless of course you were way off, in which case you should go at it again with the (jig)saw.

• Now replace the bolts of the metal corner plates with shorter ones. You can get them with the hexagonal head already attached (the ones in the table are full threaded bolts). The original bolts are very long and get in the way of the board.

• Get your self a board cloth, like a poker cloth, neoprene or in my case a curtain material that can be used on furniture: Toppoint Isola. The great thing about the Isola is that it's thick enough that you don't need foam in between. It's not cheap however; normally it goes for about 50 euro a meter I think (I got it for free, yay).

• Spray universal spray glue on the board (don't create wet pools, that will ruin the surface of the fabric as it soaks through and creates hard lumps) and drape the cloth on top.

• Cut around the sides. Don't worry about folding it around to the back in my version. I use edging trim/strips later on to hide the edges and fix the board in place.

• Optionally treat the fabric with a super hydrophobic spray for easy cleaning.

• Basically the table is usable at this point, but we can go further still

• Buy two long flexible edging trims/strips, push them against the sides and push the corners into a bend. Then make sure you cut them in the middle of the short sides. After that, while holding the bend in shape with some pressure, fasten the strips against the side with either very fast contact glue (not recommended due to the bend's pressure push back), double sided (carpet) tape (carpet tape being thinner than normal double sided tape) or in my case: black screws.

• Repeat for the other side, connecting the strips in the middle of the short sides and you're done! If you use screws, make sure you screw into the lower half of the strips, as the middle covers the guide rails for the metal sliders, so there's nothing to screw into there.

• Enjoy!

Like the original post, I might look into cup holders that can hang on the side (like this). Or if I'm feeling fancy, I might try to do LED's, but so far I couldn't come up with an elegant solution. For now, I'm extremely happy with how my version turned out!

/edit: thanks for my first gold ever! [milestone achieved]