How to makeover a centre pedestal table.

Yesterday I posted about “thrifting” a table from our neighbour’s curb (Oh the shame of it!). Today I am following up with the makeover.

I had been looking for a small table to fill a void in our kitchen. I wanted a round table, perhaps drop leaf – because I didn’t want it to take up too much space, but I wanted it to look like 2 or 3 people could sit at it – for an “eat-in” kitchen. We can already sit at the island, but I also like to just sit at table height and have my coffee or fiddle with my computer while I look out the window.

We picked up this table from a house down the road, and ran for it. (or walked a little quickly)

It was the standard type of table sold on Wayfair or Amazon – but it had been painted, and the centre pedestal had been altered a little.

The previous owners had obviously had some difficulties with the top staying on – or they had wanted it to be taller – I’m not sure, but the top was actually glued onto this pedestal.

We took off the 4 boards which were nailed around the top of the pedestal, which made it a little narrower.

We decided to cut down the tabletop – I was hoping for a depth of about 28-29 inches, so it didn’t jut out in front of the refrigerator. It was just over 40 inches in diameter. We removed the supports from the back of the table – so that we could cut it down – they were across the grain and we wanted to cut in the direction of some seams that we could already see in the top of the table. The supports appeared to be just glued to the pedestal, but look to have been meant to fit snugly around the pedestal, before the boards were added.

We were worried that there was more to the supports than we thought – that the whole thing would fall apart – but no, the tabletop was fine without.

Then we measured across the tabletop and did our best to draw a straight line of where to cut. I used a white wax pen left over from my mason jar labeling project. Then we reinforced with some painter’s tape – to make the line easier to see over the blade of the circular saw – also tape (sometimes) helps prevent cuts from splitting.

Then my husband cut an awesome straight line with his new circular saw. (I shake a little, so straight lines aren’t my best skill). He may have had doubts about grabbing the neighbour’s table, but he was “all in” with this project now.

Then we got ready to attach the supports to the back of the table top. We could place them wherever we wanted – to fit snugly around the pedestal. We realized that we forgot to measure the width of the pedestal legs – we didn’t want them to stick out beyond the tabletop. We do a lot of toe stubbing around our house. So my husband had the idea of hanging weights from the legs to centre the pedestal as much as possible on the modified table top. We used heavy nuts on fishing wire – attached to the edge of the legs with painters tape.

Then we screwed the supports back in place. We fretted about whether the legs were sticking out too far, and thought about cutting them a bit – but they are just fine!

I sanded the cut edge, and lightly sanded the table all over. It’s a veneer over compressed wood, so I didn’t make the mistake of sanding it too much, and having to replace the veneer. I took a little bit more care with the edges, and then applied some of my favourite dark Gel Stain around the edges. I wanted to sand the final finish down a little bit to give that antiqued edge look.

I used a bit of filler on the cut edge. At this moment I realized that I’d used up all my chalk paint. I mixed a little leftover white latex semi-gloss paint with some plaster of paris to make my own chalk paint. I added a little too much plaster of paris, and it was a hot day outside, so I found the paint a bit too gritty and lumpy – but it worked with a lot of stirring. I applied 2 coats to the table and pedestal. The paint dries very quickly.

After the paint dried, I took a hand-block sander lightly around the edge, and removed just a little paint – revealing the dark Gel Stain.

This was an easy project, using things we had around the house and a discarded table. It could have gone all wrong, but it turned out just right! We had some fun working on this together.

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