Transforming 3 Ruined End Tables

by Jasmin

6 Materials

Three end tables were heading to the dump! I got the call to come and try and save them! I ended up with 3 truckloads of items to play with! Almost all of it was in rough shape.
This transformation was a doozy of a project. I'll add a few pictures here, but honestly, the blog in the link is far more in depth and will hopefully answer questions if you have any.
I love these projects! They really get the mind racing with ideas! I could have done a million things with them, but opted for this route since I have a wee bit of an obsession with trunks, benches and storage!

The before and after.

The before photo. Ouch!

close up of the top

pretty much ruined

drawers were held in by plastic runners that had been snapped off leaving small chunks of plastic inside the inner walls.

as you can see here.

Remove hardware then wash, degrease, and sand the finish off. There really isn't much need to do more when you know a piece is going to get painted, and let's face it, this needs paint.....and a LOT of wood fill.

Now, almost every piece I aquire, first gets steamed then sits outside in "quarantine" for 2 weeks. For a few reasons.

1. Helps remove any smells from the previous owners home

2. Any critters living in, on or under will hopefully move on to a new home in the great outdoors.

3. I can sit and stare at the pieces while I work on other projects. This is a really important step for me because to be honest, I never really know what I plan on doing with the stuff until I start stripping it!

So staring at it for 2 weeks helps!

Thankfully, the tops on these pieces are real wood.

So instead of throwing away perfectly good wood, I flipped it upside down, trimmed it to size, stained and inserted it into the hole where the drawer used to be.

trim off the excess from the tops.

Next up - attaching the three end tables together.

Unfortunately, one table was a smidge shorter than the others.

I added a thin strip of wood to the bottom to raise it up high enough to match the other two.

Then wood glue, clamp and screw until your tables are joined.

once attached, find something that works or the top. I opted to "make my own barnboard" faux barnboard. There is a how to in the blog for this.

while making the top, I painted the base.

I can't tell you what colour this is because I tend to just mix up my own colours.

almost done! A few more small things to do then off to hunt for hardware

The final look!

Fabulous!

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Wood
Wood glue
Wood fill
Paint
Stain
Wax

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3 of 25 questions

Art a Real Talent llc on Dec 24, 2017

magnificent how did you join the night stands

0
Nadia Hartley on Feb 15, 2018

Hi, I would appreciate it if you could advise me how best to fill the gap of
about 3 mm between 2 pieces of an extendable table top as the mechanism
under the table top is rusted and cannot be screwe’d.
Thank you for any help in solving my proble.

2
Barbara on Jan 29, 2019

Did the front scroll design come off? I have a queen anne dresser from my mother that I would like to redo but really dislike the scroll work on the bottom

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Comments

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3 of 304 comments

Cat on Feb 14, 2020

Amazing! I have JUST the place for something like this! LOL. Great save :-)

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Johanne Palange on Nov 05, 2020

Great save. I love how you repurposed 3 ugly old things to make 1 beautiful new thing. However, I don't like the bottom skirting board. It looks heavy and ill proportioned. Maybe a smaller one would have drawn less attention to itself, perhaps even painting it the color of the front of the piece. Great inspiration though.

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- Johanne Palange on Apr 01, 2021
  
  Funny, I commented on this great piece in November 2020. I just saw it a-new today in April 2021, not remembering that I had seen it, and my first impression was the same, about the bottom skirting piece. But I still love the outcome.
  
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