I’m changing some of our living room decor – I’ll go into this more in another post. Today though I thought I’d share this little, big find that I discovered at the brocante. I had been searching for something with character and this seemed to fit the bill with its pantina and beautiful, turned legs. It’s a table that I had to reduce down, but it’s still wonderful and to be honest I genuinely like the height. No more bending over to put my cup down.
This is what it looked like when I first brought it home. Unfortunately it’s on its side in the hallway, but you get the idea.
The first thing I did was look underneath to see how it was secured. All these slats of wood are to allow a central leaf of the table to extend it. That leaf no longer exists and I didn’t want a table that big anyway. I think the combined height of this was 2-3 inches, so that seemed a good place to start reducing the table.
A hefty screw driver managed to get out all the screws without too much difficulty. I’d actually paid 9€ for the table. As my DIY journey continues I’m starting to develop an idea of just how much things cost, and believe me these screws alone would set you back that amount new.
I had the choice, do I further reduce the legs on the table? I knew if I did that a lot of what had appealed to me about it would be disguised. Do you see below where it would be natural to remove the top part of the posts leaving the first curve? The trouble with that is the lowered edge of the table would hide this first curve from view. I thought that would be a shame, so took a wait and see approach.
Each of the tops of the posts had a round piece of wood jutting out to fit into the slats connected to the table. I didn’t have the tools to make a similar hole in the table top directly, so I decided to screw right into the table. I was thinking at this stage that I would paint it and slightly distress the finish to highlight the shape.
Along the way I originally thought the central columns had to go, but I managed to review this later.
I reused some of the slats to join the tables like this….
… and then added the legs in the same direction so that they also joined the two halves of the table top together.
I reused the screws which have a slightly rusted look and actually blend with the table really well. I submerged them into the top by taking a wider screw bit and doing this about halfway into the wood to make a slightly deeper hole at the top for the screw head to nestle in.
As they’re so well disguised I’m not going to paint the table, or even refinish the top. I like the worn, characterful wood. We decided to live with the height for a little while and then when we’re certain we’re happy with it I’d unscrew it, glue the legs and rescrew it all together to make sure it’s sturdy.
Here’s the table looked at that point…
Here’s the patina…
You can see the screws don’t stand out.
Oh, and here’s what the kids liked to do….
After we’d lived with it a while we definitely liked the height, but I kept looking at the table legs thinking they looked unfinished. Then when I was chatting to my mum I picked up the central column and compared it to the table. It had been too tall you see, so I wondered what the difference was.
I could see a slight crack between the table top and it’s wooden apron and the difference was minimal. Keeping the central column straight I marked where this crack was on each leg then sawed across. Then this could be slid in the middle.
This is where we are now…
I’ll update you soon on my plans for the room.
In the meantime let me know what you think in the comments – I’d love to hear from you if you’ve used a re-purposed item for your coffee table.
lacoeursacre.wordpress.com 