Before you go throwing out or donating that outdated furniture, ask yourself, “Can I work with this instead?” Many times, there are simple ways to makeover old pieces instead of swapping them out! From filing cabinets to easy kitchen backsplash swaps, and even fireplace makeovers, we’ve seen time and time again how much a little effort, paint, and creativity can do to transform a home!
Why Make a DIY Dining Table Top?
When I moved from my apartment into our new home, I had to make a lot of decisions when it came to my furniture. What should I keep, what should I sell, and what can I donate to a friend or neighbor? One item I went back and forth on was my dining room table – this one from Wayfair.
It has a nice, solid wood base, but I was just over the faux concrete finish (see closeup below). The texture frankly isn’t very realistic. But, since I still like the quality and style of the base, I knew I couldn’t give up on it just yet.
So, instead of buying a new table, I decided to get inspired by our post on DIY dining table makeovers and give my old table top a bit of a facelift! Here’s how we did it and what we learned along the way.
Planning Our DIY Dining Table Top Project
For this project, my main priorities were keeping the construction as simple as possible and ending up with a beautiful, dark wood tone finish. I was inspired by my parents’ dining room table – a handyman made it for them after they finished building their house.
Constructed out of plywood and weathered using chains, hammers, and other tools, it was only ever meant to be a temporary solution, but they fell in love with it, and love being able to show people that it was made of plywood, of all things!
So, we started with two sheets of maple plywood. I wanted to create a solid wood trim/frame around the edges of the table to give it a nice finish (who doesn’t love a challenge?!), so we bought a couple 1x2x8 pieces of oak for that.
Step 1: Cutting the Plywood and Oak Frame
The first thing we needed to do was to measure and cut the plywood (we based the construction design and measurements on the existing tabletop). First, we cut out the size of the table top from one sheet of plywood, and then cut out an online (about 6 inches wide) from the other.
The reason for this is that it helped make the table look thicker. It also sets the base into the tabletop a bit, and helps to hide the brackets that attach the base to the top. We also had to cut the oak frame by measuring and cutting ends on a 45-degree miter for clean lines.
Step 2: Attaching the Oak Frame to the Plywood
Next, we attached both sheets of plywood using wood glue and screws, then attached the oak frame to the outside border of the plywood using a nail gun and wood glue. I don’t have a photo of the process attaching the border, but as you can imagine, it was easy for extra wood glue to seep onto the surface of the table.
My advice here is to be careful to remove all the wood glue that seeps onto the table top. Wood glue won’t stain the same way as the rest of the wood, so it can really mess up your stain job later on. As you can see in the photo below, we dealt with this mistake. I think the only solution would have been to use less glue because it seems nearly impossible to fully wipe it off. Let me know if you have the answer!
Step 3: Sand, Sand, Sand
Once everything is attached and set, it’s time to sand… cautiously! We’re preparing to stain the table top, so we need to make sure it’s sanded nice and smooth before hitting it with the brush. Take care to keep your sanding device nice and flat adn use gentle pressure to gradually smooth out the surface. Press to hard or unevenly and you may end up digging in too deep. As you can see in the photo below, we accidentally sanded too deep and reached a different wood grain.
There were other spots where we accidentally sanded even deeper, too. Luckily it all worked out because we liked the idea of a bit of a weathered look, but if you want your table to look nice and polished, you’ll want to be extra careful!
Step 4: Staining the Tabletop
As I mentioned, I wanted a rich, dark color for my tabletop. I wanted it to coordinate nicely with the color of the base, but I was ok if it didn’t 100% match. The good thing about staining a tabletop is that you can just keep going until you get the right color.
We used an oil polyurethane stain (Minwax) because it’s the most durable and protects the table from moisture, which seemed important given that it’s a surface we’ll be eating and drinking from.
Our biggest mistake here was that we didn’t use a pre-stain conditioner, which would have made our stain a lot more even and prevented stain streaks on the tabletop. We actually ended up having to sand the stain off and re-stain a couple of times before we got it right by finally removing all the stain, conditioning the wood, and staining it again. A lot more time-consuming than I’d hoped!
Step 5: Apply a Top Coat
Once we were finally happy with the stain results, it was time for the top coat. We used a gloss, oil-based top coat, and we did it like this:
- Apply one layer
- Let it dry
- Sand it with fine sandpaper
- Repeat until you have three coats
Why all the sanding? It helps to remove bubbles, unevenness, and generally makes the finish look a lot more professional. It also helps the next coats to stick better, and should help your table last a lot longer.
After we’d done three rounds of coating and sanding, we applied a final layer and let it dry for 24 hours before touching it, and 72 hours before using the table. In the end, we love how it looked in the end!
Step 6: Integrate the Dining Table Makeover into Your Room!
Now for the fun part – once the table is done, you can create a whole new look in your dining room! We were pretty much starting from scratch, so we were able to center a lot of what we did around the table itself.
We removed the old wallpaper, bought a new dining room rug, added some wall art, and set the table to be the centerpiece. It totally transformed the room, and I’m so happy with how everything turned out!
