After a week or so of using my unfinished Dreamcast coffee table, some of its flaws were beginning to irk me. The 1/8″ acrylic top was too bendy to hold heavy drinks or pitchers, and the clear-top table was too camouflaged for my aging dog to see properly. As such, she wouldn’t notice it was there until she was right up on it; at which point she’d get spooked and run off. I taped paper over the corners in an effort to not terrify my dog on a regular basis. This helped her see the table, but looked rather unfinished. I knew what had to be done. I headed out to my local hardware store to purchase some 1/4″ acrylic sheeting and a can of “Gamecube” purple spray-paint. I have to say, there’s something oddly satisfying about embedding a Sega system in a table painted like a Nintedo system.

While I’ve still got a long way to go in terms of aesthetics (i.e. adding a nice rubberized edge and another thin top-plate with Nintendo or Sega themed graphics), the table is fully functional and completely usable (and doesn’t frighten my dog).

Read on for more details and photos of the construction.

I started out by taping off the monitor viewport with electrical tape on the front-side of the acrylic plate. This provided a guideline.

I then flipped the plate over and taped off the interior portion of the monitor viewport and covered it with brown paper.

I then taped this off, squared up the corners a bit, and taped down a thick piece of cardboard to absorb any errant spray-paint.

It was then time to spray-paint.

After the paint dried, it was time to fit the plates.

A set of nuts epoxied to the inner side of each plate provide 4 balance points and a sturdy attachment base for the top plate.

All that’s left to do now is play games and add graphics!