Side Table DIY Flip

Bringing another furniture piece destined for the landfill back to life DIY-style

I purchased this side table for $1 at a yard sale, the seller told me that this table came from his mother’s home which he had recently cleared out and he was ready to get rid of it. This piece was not only dated but had a damaged leg but I definitely saw potential! This piece gave me a run for my money as the leg turned out to be more challenging to fix than I had originally anticipated but the final piece was definitely worth it-plus pretty much every furniture DIY comes with it’s own version of surprises!

What We Were Working With:

As you can see the original finish was the old throw back from the 1980s orange faux oak finish, that along with the fan detailing really aged the piece but I loved the details in the top and I love a claw foot so I was sold!

Inspiration Picture:

Obviously this table structurally is quite different from the one I’m refinishing but it has the idea of mixing light wood stain with black modern finish that I was going for! I absolutely love the wood grain detailing on the top of the table so I decided to use a white wash light stain for the top and contrasted that with a black high gloss paint for the sides and legs of the table.

Re-finishing Process

I began as I typically do by giving the piece a good cleaning with Krud Krutter-my go-to cleaner for furniture pieces. I followed this by stripping the finish with my trusty Citristrip followed by sanding with 80 grit, 180 grit and then 220 grit sandpaper. I actually probably should have only used the 180 and 220 grit on the top as the 80 grit proved to be a bit harsher than was really needed.

I then worked on staining the top of the piece. I created a custom stain for the piece by applying one coat of Minwax classic gray stain which I then wiped off quickly so it wouldn’t darken the top too much. I then applied two coats of the Minwax pickled oak stain and was really happy with how this finish came out!

Refinished and Stained Top:

Fixing the Leg:

From there I moved on to working on fixing the broken leg. I started by filling the cracked leg with my go-to fix of wood glue and then Bondo but the top was so heavy that more reinforcement was needed. After going back to the drawing board I ended up inserting two screws to secure the cracked piece to the leg horizontally so that the cracked piece was securely re-attached. I then sanded the still slightly visible crack after filling it with wood glue to a smooth finish. Then came time to apply two coats of primer to the sides of the top as well as all four legs, I used Zinsser Bulls Eye 1,2,3 primer (my favorite primer for furniture flips) and did a light sanding with 400 grit paper in between coats. I then applied four coats of Behr’s cabinet, door, and trim enamel paint in Black with a semi-gloss finish with a light sanding of 400 grit paper in between coats.

Priming & Painting:

After letting the paint dry I applied two coats of Varathane crystal clear water based polyurethane, since I had painted this piece with trim/enamel paint I only did two coats, after re-attaching the top and ensuring that my final fix for the leg was sufficient the piece was complete! Now on to everyone’s favorite part;

Before & After

Just a reminder of what the table looked like when I started this refinish project:

And the completed piece:

I am SO pleased with how this piece turned out, I actually ended up keeping it as part of a reading nook I created for our office (a blog post with a mini-office makeover is coming up so stay tuned for that)! Fixing the leg turned out to be more laborious than I had originally anticipated but I feel that challenges like this help me improve my furniture flipping skills so I definitely appreciate them when looking back (even if I’m not so appreciative in the moment)! Let me know in the comments below what you think of this furniture flip!!

My Key Take-Aways

Don’t sleep on yard sales for very reasonably priced furniture that is begging to be refinished. I find that especially towards the end of the sale sellers are really motivated to move items and are going to give you their absolute lowest/best price!
If your first fix for a piece doesn’t work as planned, don’t give up. Do some research on Google or YouTube to see how others who fixed similar damage did it.
Feel free to remove original accents if they are dating the piece or no longer fit with the new re-finished theme of the piece!