Foldable Hanging Balcony Bar/Table

I built a bar/table that is space efficient, foldable, hanging on the railing of my balcony.

It can easily be removed from the railing and is rental friendly.

As parisians, we have very scarce space in our flat. We are so lucky to have a small balcony, but we rarely use it unfortunately. We have a table and chairs but the space was too small to be comfortable sitting there regularly.

My goal was to build a bar that would hang on the railing to save space and spend lovely time in our exterior space.

That is a project I have had for a few months now and never really believed I had the time, skills, tools and space required to complete. I have never had any craft/woodworking project before, and always looked at others on instructables with admiration.

Please note that this is my first project.

One day I decided to just do it.

My requirements were : not buying many tools, keep it simple and do your best. Errors do not matter.

I would love to hear your feedback on my first attempt at creating anything ! Friends have already ordered the same for their balcony and I would love to improve this design.

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Total budget : around 200 Euros

Total time : 1 day

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Overall, I am very happy with the result. I have been able to test it and it was great ! We can dine, have a drink or work there now. It is much more enjoyable.

I favored simplicity over budget, so there are probably cheaper alternatives.

Also, I have very few hardware and had to buy everything.

Required tools :

• Philips screwdriver
• Paint brush
• 8mm drill

Here are the supplies I boughts :

• Wood : Oak table top 250x60x1.8 - 1x99.90€
• Screws : 2x 40 pack of 4x12mm - 2x3.90€ - link
• 2x Bolts : 8x120mm - 8.90€ - link
• 2x Washers : 8mm - 4.00€ - link
• 2x Nuts : 8mm - 3.50€ - link
• 8x Angles : 30x30x30x2mm - 8x0.90€ - link
• 2x Foldable support brackets : 160x300mm - 2x16.60€ - link
• Rechargeable LED Light because why not ? :) : 12.90€ - link
• Varnish : 18.90€ - link

Total : 195.42€

To ensure the bar fits properly over the railing and to sit comfortably you may need to adjust the measurements of this guide.

To do so, you need to adapt the design to your own railing dimensions

Railing height

The height of your railing is important to consider as it will impact the eight of your foldable tablet.

To sit comfortably consider that the tablet needs to be 250-300mm above the sitting height.

Board 2 height might need to be adjusted.

Do not forget to consider the space needed to screw the foldable support brackets under the tablet.

In my case I needed 160mm available below the tablet to fix the brackets and 320mm from the top of the railing to sit properly and have the tablet 650mm above ground. I cut the board 500cm (330+160+20) in height. 20mm is the tablet's thickness.

Railing depth

To make sure the bar is properly hanging on the railing with not too much wiggling room, you need to adjust the space between board 2 and board 4.

Before cutting wood make sure to take the thickness of the boards in consideration.

Be careful to add some margins to include the hardware that takes place between boards 2, 4 and 5 (angles and screws).

If your railing's depth is above 60mm, you should adapt and may need to cut the board 5 with a larger depth.

In my case there is 30 mm of railing depth + 2x20mm of wood thickness + 10mm margin for hardware = 80mm.

I chose 100mm for board 5 to make it adaptable to other railings.

My wood supplier cut the boards to my required dimension as I do not have the required tools and space.

I asked to cut according to the cutting plan attached.

Please refer to the plan attached for more information on location of angles, brackets and wood boards.

A - Angles

Angles are screwed directly in 2 boards with a 90 degree angle.

You need 4 screws by angle.

Because the board 5 supports a lot of weight, I advise adding 3 angles per joint to ensure more safety.

Make sure to joint boards 4 and 5 before joining boards 5 and 2 or you will not have enough room for the screwdriver.

Make sure the jointed boards are leveled

B - Foldable brackets

Open the foldable bracket to a 90 degree angle and use the screws to fix it to board 1. Make sure it is perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the board to ensure leveling.

Once you ensured the level is good, you can screw board 2 as a tablet.

C - Rechargeable LED

Stick the LED support under the small upper tablet (board 3)

Additional support

If you want to increase safety and relieve the joints on board 5 I suggest the following system :

• use any scrap wood board that remains that is wide enough to cover the space between the railing bars
• drill 2x 8mm holes in board 2 under the main tablet (board 1) for discretion
• After marking the exact spacing between the holes in the scrap board, drill 2x 8mm holes in the scrap wood board
• insert 2x bolts
• insert the drilled scrap board behind the bars
• secure with 2x nuts and washers

The good thing with this design is that you can easily move the bar from the railing in winter. But for those who prefer to keep it mounted all year long, you should protect it against UV and rain.

I personally did not sand the wood, but you can feel slight wood imperfections. I do not mind personally.

If you want to avoid that, you can use a light sanding paper and clean the surface with a wet cloth.

To avoid staining the metal hardware, you can disassemble the bar before applying the varnish. Again, I did not do that personally and just tried to be cautious when applying the varnish.

Once the wood is perfectly dry, you can apply 2-3 coats of varnish according to the instructions.

Wait 3 hours after the last coat to dry before hanging the foldable bar to the balcony railing.

Congratulations !

You are now the owner of a foldable balcony bar !

Enjoy the summer :)

Hadrien