Telephone Table Makeover - to Hide Those Unsightly Cables

Valerie Burge
by Valerie Burge
12 Materials
$10
2 Hours
Easy

I purchased a little vintage telephone table to house our landline telephone and modem. It functioned perfectly for our needs, albeit a little drab and worn looking. But my biggest issue was all those visible cables!! So I decided to give it a little makeover.

Yeesh - all those cables!

The first thing I did was look around my garage for something to attach to the back. I found an old cabinet back panel that would be perfect! (And if I didn’t have one on hand, I’m sure these are inexpensive to buy.) 


I measured the space between the table shelves and cut a piece to fit, using a jigsaw. The first cutout was a little crooked so I tried again. Second time it was perfect! The rough edges around the cuts were very easy to smooth out using my orbital sander (a sanding block would work too).

Cutting to fit

Then I drilled a hole in the piece – near the bottom – for the cables to feed through. I used a hole saw, attached to my drill.

Cutting a hole for the cables

The next step was to paint everything. After much thought, I chose a light grey colour. I took the table apart so I would get a smoother finish on the shelves. It was super easy to take apart.

disassembled

For the bottom legs, I poked the screws through a cardboard box. For the little spindles on the top, I poked screws up through a piece of cardboard so the spindles would be easier to paint and let dry.

Spindles & legs ready for paint

I gave the 2 shelves a very light sanding. Then I painted all the pieces, using a flat brush for the shelves and a precision brush for the legs and spindles.


The next morning I decided to glaze the legs and spindles, but as soon as I wiped back the glaze the paint came off too! I forgot to wait at least 24 hours before glazing. Oops.  (Sadly not the first time I've made this mistake!)

Glazing gone wrong

So I repainted everything with a second coat of grey. I decided I really loved the way it looked, so I decided not to use glaze after all.


On the top shelf, I did a little stencil pattern in white. I used a sea sponge to dab the paint on, to give it a textured look.  

Stencil

When it was dry I applied wipe on poly to the two shelves. This stuff is so easy to use! Just apply it with a damp rag – similar to dusting!


I replaced the drab drawer pull with a sparkly one I found it my tickle trunk of “knobs & pulls.” And put all the pieces back together and fed the cables in through the hole on the new back panel. 


Once it was together, my plan was to glue the back to the legs. But the fit was nice and snug and it stayed in place, even while I was feeding cables through it, so I decided not to use the glue. If it ever falls off I can glue it then.

Hi Charlie
Well hello again, Charlie!

I really like the way this piece turned out. There’s a lot of brown woods in the space, so I like how the table kind of blends in with the watery blue walls.  


I didn't spend any money on this makeover, but used about $5 worth of paint. And if I remember correctly, that glass knob was around $5.

After

For anyone else struggling with open shelving and cable chaos, this is a very quick, easy and inexpensive solution! 

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