All Gus'ed Up: Easy Table Makeover

How many of you have a little table that has seen better days? Maybe it's in the attic or the garage or still in the house - because it's perfectly functional, just not as pretty as it was when it was new. Well, Gus has a solution for you! A makeover for your table that's easy-to-do and costs under $5!


I bought two of these tables about 8 years ago when we lived in our old house. Hey, I was going through a Margaritaville stage. Don't judge. <grin> We brought them with us when we moved: one went in the basement for Buddy's laptop, and the other went in the garage for Gus's crap important manly garage stuff.

I had been looking for a plant stand to put on the front porch, in the corner by the door - but the cheapest one I could find was $40! My cheap crafty side wouldn't allow me to pay that much for it when I knew we could create something for much less. Gus and I discussed how we were going to "cover" the top and eventually decided to go with wood.

What we used:

• 1X2 furring strips from Home Depot (2 - 6' pieces @ $0.97 each)
• Gorilla Wood Glue, 8-Ounce 
• Minwax Polyshades stain in Espresso Satin (already had)
• Behr paint (already had)
• Rust-Oleum Hammered Metal Finish Spray, Black, 12-Ounce
• Stanley 15-Inch 9 Points SharpTooth Fast Cutting Saw
• hammer, short nails, tape measure, pencil

Gus worked on the legs of the table first - he scuffed them with a little sandpaper, rinsed them off, let them dry, then painted them with the black Rustoleum paint.


Here's the obligatory shot of Gus a shot of Gus cutting the furring strips to size:


Obviously, the amount of wood you need and the length of the strips will depend upon the size of your table. Our table was 13.75" square. Gus cut four pieces of wood and filed the ends with a wood file/rasp. Then he positioned the strips like this - and glued and nailed them into place:


Yes, I realize that the diagram is flipped from what the picture shows, but you get the idea!


The rest of the wood was cut into strips that covered the frame - so we measured the frame and the wood strips to determine how many we would need. It turned out that we needed 10 strips (15.5" long), and there would be a little space between each one. Again, after they were cut, Gus used the rasp on the cut ends to smooth them out a bit.


He put the end pieces on first, and then worked his way inward.


Each piece was glued and nailed into place - don't forget to position the pieces first so that you can make any adjustments before they're attached. We didn't sand the surface because we wanted a rougher, weathered look, but you can certainly sand it if you want it to be smooth.


Doesn't it look great? And it was QUICK, EASY, AND INEXPENSIVE. Love those words!

Now it's time for the finish. We decided to do "weathered' wood, just like for the weathered wood frames we did in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, I used the same stain and paint.


First, I sprayed the wood with a little water, because I didn't want the stain to penetrate too deeply. Then I brushed a light coat of the stain onto the wood and wiped it off immediately. I wasn't careful - some spots were dark, some were light - but I wanted it to be like that. Obviously, if you are just staining it, you'll want to be more careful with the application. You could just use paint, but I would make sure it was some type of exterior paint if the table will be outside.

Immediately after staining, I applied some of the watered-down grey paint. Again, I brushed it on, but I let it sit a little longer than the stain - then gently wiped it off, leaving a little paint behind.


Perfect! How cool does that look? I love it!!! If you want to see how we stacked the flower pots, you can see the tutorial here.

Are you ready to give it a try? Or have you already done a table makeover? Tell me about it!

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