How To Update a Drop Leaf Table

by Sarah Trop

Have you ever seen those ugly drop leaf maple tables?? You know the kind you couldn’t sell for more than $20 and you feel guilty about getting rid of it, or you were at a yard sale and couldn’t pass up the purchase because of the price? Well… we are here to help!

how to update a drop leaf table, how to, painted furniture

Today I wanted to share a way to repurpose that drop leaf table into something amazing that you’ll be proud to show off.

Here it is before:

What I do like about this table is the wood grain on the top and the shape of the chairs. What I don’t like is the drop leaf, the color of the wood, and the base of the table.

Since we were taking off the table base, I wanted to find a way to salvage it. The only way I could think of reusing it was to turn it into a bench. Since there were only 4 chairs, I thought this might be a really good option for extra seating. For the bench we had to cut the two base pieces a little shorter and then add a new piece of wood for the seat.

With the table base gone, we had to add all new legs on the bottom. In order to do this and breathe new life into the table – it is no longer a drop leaf!! We painted the legs of the table Navajo White by Benjamin Moore and lightly distressed them.

The chairs and bench are painted Lincoln Cottage Black by Valspar. We sanded down the table top and stained it with Dark Walnut and Classic Gray Stain by Minwax. Maple doesn’t like to take stain very well so this would’t be the same color if you stained a mahogany or pine piece. If you’d like to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post at FunCycled.com.