Coffee Table Upcycle

We were so excited to bring this coffee table back from my parents house! It’s the perfect size for jigsaw puzzles and will be perfect in our basement family room! The only part I wasn’t excited about was the color. The yellowed oak reminds me of our dining table before we refinished it…. which is what inspired me to refinish this coffee table as well!

Dan had built this coffee table 10 years ago but you could apply this upcycle to any thrifted coffee table (or any piece of wood).

We started by sanding off the oil based polyurethane from the top (this was what caused the oak to look so yellow so it had to go). If your table top is just a veneer (plywood) then make sure you’re being careful not to sand too much. We started with 220 and ended with 320.

I then applied 2 coats of whitewash (waiting 2 hours between coats). I used a rag to sparingly apply the whitewash and did not wipe off the excess. I let the whitewash dry a full 24 hours.

Next I attempted to stain this using walnut and grey but it wasn’t turning out at all! I think there was too much stain from before that we weren’t able to sand out…. oh well. Since that didn’t work I applied 3 more coats of whitewash. I applied the whitewash in very, very thin coats. So thin that there was no excess to wipe off!

Once the layers of whitewash had dried completely I applied one coat of grey stain to tone down the white a little bit and give more of a unique finish. We finished the top with 2 coats of water based poly.

Now onto the legs. We opted to just swap the base of this table for some hairpin legs because we already had the legs from a previous project idea. You could just as easily paint the legs a different color but I love the look of the hairpins and think they match our style better.

And that’s it: coffee table up-cycle complete! this project ended up costing $0 since we had all the materials on hand.