Updating an Old Project

5 Materials
$25
3 Hours
Easy

I built a small console table a few years ago when I was living in a small apartment. At the time I needed something to fit in my tiny space and my father had a bunch of leftover wood from one of his projects. I took that wood and, for the first time, built something completely from scratch. I learned a lot as I went along and it wasn't perfect but it looked good. Now that I don't need a small console table, I wanted to fix it and give it a new look & use.

This is the original table. It was completely built from leftover wood, stained with Minwax Red Mahogany, and three coats of Minwax Polyurethane.

This first step was removing the legs which had been attached with wood glue and corner brackets. The brackets were easy to get off, but that was some strong wood glue. I used a jigsaw to cut off the legs and then a Ryobi sander to smooth it out as much as possible. As you can see, I didn't stain the bottom of the original table. I'm not sure why because it looks a little rough, but I definitely learned from that mistake.

Since I was thinking about making this a bench, I wanted to give it more support. I cut a couple extra pieces of wood and screwed them along the edge of the bottom. Once everything was sanded and the new support pieces were added, I stained the bottom to match the top of the table.

I ordered hairpin legs online and attached them at all four corners of the table.

With the height and sturdiness, this project can be used as a bench or a coffee table. I put it in front of a window to see what it would look like as a window bench or plant table.

Here it is set up as a coffee table.

Before and After

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  • Gail Gail on May 27, 2019

    I have a bench out side it’s just I didn’t take care of it in the winter. Now the wood in the middle is really weak. What can I do about that? Are can I do anything about it ?I love my bench I want t keep it

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