Trash to Treasure - Side Table/humidor
A neighbor was getting rid of this cute little side table so my husband went and grabbed them for me. I noticed that this little table had a copper lining. I had never seen a table like that so I googled it and it turns out, it is a humidor! Cool! Obviously it doesn’t NEED to be used as a humidor, but apparently copper is good for cigar storage because it retains humidity quite effectively.
As you can see the table was pretty nice already, but it has already been painted black and had a little damage to the top. Also the copper inside was pretty beat up. I decided to kick it up a notch and give it something a little different. Here is what I did to transform this trash to treasure – side table/humidor…
Table before
Table inside - before
I wanted to use a bright fun color for this piece. I had some left over Rust-Oleum Spray Paint in the color Seaside in my garage so thought I’d try painting a little spot of the table to see if I liked it. I did like it! Very much! So I ended up painting the whole table with it. This Rust-Oleum paint is amazing. It has a built in primer so you really only need about 1 coat of this stuff. It literally only took me about 5 minutes to paint this whole table! Above is the table with only one coat. You can see some spots need filling in, but the coverage with only one coat is impressive!
Maybe you are thinking, um, ya that is a little too bright for my taste. Believe me, I’m with ya. I do love this color, but it IS a little bright. I used some Krylon Chalk Finish Antiquing Wax in Dark Vintage to tone down the piece. Using this brush I purchased, I dipped it into the wax and used just a tiny bit at a time. I used this same technique a few weeks ago when I re-finished this tropical Tommy Bahama style card table and chairs.
Here is the top with some wax added to it.
I used this Weiman’s Copper and Metal cleaner that we already had on hand. I used poured some right onto the copper and used a microfiber cloth to rub it in and clean it all up. It isn’t perfect, but looks a LOT better.
The last step in any of my furniture flips is to always put at least 2-3 coats of MinWax Polycrylic protective finish on the entire piece. This is supposed to prevent any chipping.
Here is the finished product. What do you think? Cute, right? I just listed this on Facebook Marketplace. I hope it sells.
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I like it. If it were mine, I would have put in a different knob, something that goes with the room it's in. it would be a good place to store some games in, magazines, etc.
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I have a very similar piece I got from my grandmother. It was not a humidor, she always said it was for the chamber pot!
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Hi Linda, yes a lot of people have mentioned that in these comments. When we first found it I googled it and very similar pieces came up that were labeled as humidors. Honestly I am not sure what it was used for since we found it in the trash. In any case, it was a very cool piece!
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Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Did you have any trouble with the Polycrylic bonding to it over the wax? The instructions say it has be clean if wax. Love your look. Was just wondering
Do you sell this lovely chamber humidor yet?
Did this piece have any tobacco odor? If so, were you able to eliminate the odor?