DIY Coffee Table Upcycle – Paper and Stitch

I upcycled what I already had to make a new DIY coffee table.

When I did the living room makeover for my mom, I got a round coffee table for the room. But then for Christmas, my brother and I bought her a nicer one, that better fit the space. So, I took the old coffee table to use at my house for a while. I didn’t love the style of the legs, but it worked well for us in the interim and I liked having a round table to use. We previously had a skinny rectangular coffee table that didn’t really work very well in the space.

The table has mostly held up, but the wood top was pretty destroyed from constant use. There were water stains, coffee mug rings, pen and crayon marks – all the things. It just didn’t look very good in person anymore. So, I started looking for a new coffee table and I found one that I loved, but of course, it was also over $4,000! Which definitely did not work for our budget. Beautiful coffee table though. It’s this one.

So, I thought, why not try to make something similar using the wooden table top we already have and see if I can remake the expensive one I saw for a few hundred bucks (as opposed to 4,000). Well, it ended up being WAY easier than I thought. After a trip to a specialty hardwood shop, I found really thick dowels that would work perfectly for the legs and that was really all I needed to get started. Aside from the wood veneer, which I also found at that hardwood store. SO! I was ready to go.

But that’s not exactly how it turned out…

With the sheet of veneer and the heavy duty dowels, I had only spent about $150 (the bulk of that being the sheet of veneer). After I got started though, sanding everything down, I realized most of the issues were just on the surface. And the wood table top was in better shape than I thought. In which case, I may not need the veneer at all.

I decided to try staining the wood first. And if I didn’t like it, I would just sand it back down and move forward with the veneer as planned. Spoiler alert: I never did the veneer bc the stained wood looks pretty decent and has held up MUCH better to stains so far.

Here’s how I reconfigured our old coffee table into one that feels brand new…

Wood DIY Coffee Table

Materials

• table top – Mine is from an old coffee table, I already had (Toba vintage brown coffee table from Article – this one). But you could also buy a round tabletop from home improvement stores. I found round 36 inch table tops here: Lowes  /Ace Hardware. They also have larger round wood table tops in store at DIY Home Center, if you have one of those near you. And I also found a similar option on Wayfair.
• gel stain – You can use any type of stain. It doesn’t have to be gel. I picked gel stain bc I had it already and you can skip a step when you use gel, which you’ll see in the instructions toward the end.
• 3 hardwood dowels (2.5 inch diameter) – I found these at a specialty hardwood store.
• screws
• old rags
• small wood scraps 
• *pre-stain wood conditioner – You will only need a wood conditioner if you’re using a liquid stain, instead of a gel stain. I’ll explain more about that later.

Tools / Equipment

Instructions

1. Removing the old metal base.

This was the easiest part. I just turned the coffee table over and used a drill to remove all the screws to take the base off. I gave the old base to a neighbor to reuse for their own table.

2. Cutting and sanding the legs.

I cut each wooden dowel down to 12 inches, with my miter saw, for my coffee table because I wanted something that would sit low to the ground, like the inspiration coffee table. But then, I cut another inch off after using it for a few days. So the final height of each leg was around 11 inches. You can adjust the measurement to whatever height you would like.

After cutting the legs down to size, sand each leg so it’s prepped for staining. I would recommend sanding the legs before you attach them to the coffee table top. It’s much easier this way.

3. Cutting and attaching wood to each leg.

The easiest option I came up with for attaching the thick dowels to use as legs was to attach a small piece of scrap wood (but larger than the diameter of each table leg) to the top of each leg, so I could then attach each leg to the table base.

To attach the piece of wood to the wood legs, I used a countersunk screw (through the middle of the wood piece and the middle of the dowel) and made sure each screw sat below the surface of the wood when finished.

4. Measuring placement and attaching legs.

Determining placement for the legs when the design is just three legs, instead of four, is a little more work. But still easy enough. I turned the table top over (under side facing up) and found the center of the table. Then used a protractor to mark off 120 degree spacing between each leg, similar to this.

Once the placement was all figured out, I attached the wood piece for each leg to the table base (one screw on each side of the wood) in those positions. See photo.

5. Sanding the table base.

To remove all of those stubborn stains, scratches, etc on the coffee table top, I sanded the entire surface.

I used an orbital sander for most of the sanding, which is one of those tools that’s just great to have around. If you could only get one sander, I would go with a random orbital sander (instead of a regular orbital) because with a random orbital you don’t get any scratch marks that can sometimes occur with a regular one. This is because random orbital sanders oscillates in a non predictable /random pattern. Whereas a regular one will sometimes leave circular marks.

6. Conditioning the wood and another light sanding. (optional…sort of)

Generally, gel stains are more forgiving and minimize blotchiness because they don’t penetrate into the wood, they sit on top of it. Which means, using a conditioner is not really necessary, with a gel stain. I used a gel stain, so I skipped this step. 

BUT if you’re using a liquid wood stain (which can be water based or oil based), you will likely want to condition the wood first, to reduce unevenness / blotchiness in the finished piece. You can use any pre-stain wood conditioner.

There are a couple of things to know ahead of time, when selecting the type of wood conditioner / pre-stain to use.

1. Whether you select a water based or oil based wood conditioner, just make the stain you select is the same. Meaning if you use a water based wood conditioner, use a water based stain. And if you use an oil based wood conditioner, use an oil based wood stain. There are instances where you can mix the two types, but it requires the conditioner to be COMPLETELY dry first (like 72 hours or more). So, to me, it doesn’t make sense to mix the types.
2. Water based wood conditioners raise the wood grain, so they have to be sanded after the conditioner is dry (before final staining). Oil based wood conditioners do not require sanding afterward.

7. Staining the table base and the legs of the coffee table.

As I mentioned before, I used a gel stain for this project. But the only reason I used a gel stain was because I already had it in the garage (leftover from another project).

I think if I were to do it again, I would have used my fave oil stain (Rubio Monocoat) instead. I just like the way it applies and adheres a little more than the gel stain.It penetrates the wood and as a result, the color turns out nicer imo.

With a gel stain, you just dip a rag into the gel (a very small amount goes a long way) and then wipe it onto the wood surface. You can use another rag to wipe off any excess. 

*IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s really important to properly dispose of stain rags. Oil stain rags, specifically, can spontaneously combust. SO! It’s very important that they are dried out first completely, before being thrown away. They cannot be reused. I found this video from This Old House really helpful for how to properly dispose of oily rags.

8. Add a top coat.

Lastly, once the stain has dried (typically 6 to 8 hours), you can apply a top coat to the wood surface. From there, it’s ready to use.

What was the final cost of this DIY coffee table?

Because I skipped the veneer, I saved even more money than I planned on this project. The final costs ended up being under $75! Not bad. 

Here’s the cost breakdown:

• table top (already had) $0
• gel stain (already had this too, but still included in cost) $22
• 3 hardwood dowels (2.5 inch diameter) $45
• old rags $0
• wood scraps $0

TOTAL: $67

Would you change anything about the finished table?

There is something that bothers me slightly about the legs. I think it’s the way the gel stain looks on that particular wood. But I’m not sure. Other than that, I like it – MUCH better than the old coffee table base. 

I do this veneering the entire table would make it look even closer to the inspiration table. And wrapping the legs in that same veneer would squash what I’m bothered by currently with the legs. BUT I’m good for now. Still may veneer it in the future, who knows.

How well has the coffee table held up so far?

At the time of posting this, we’ve already lived with the coffee table in its newest form for more than 6 months. And my 4 year eats snacks here, spills drinks here, plays rough here – all the things toddlers do. It pretty much looks the same as day one. Wipes clean when anything spills and doesn’t leave marks behind when dry.

I’ll update this post again as time goes on to see how well it holds up. But wow, what a difference just adding some stain will do, in terms of protecting the wood.