How to Build a Beautiful & Thrifty DIY Side Table

Building a thrifty DIY side table can be intimidating, but once you take that first step, you’ll see it’s so much easier than you imagined!

Thrifty side table DIY furniture project

Today I’m joining 8 other ladies to share some fun DIY projects you can do in the winter.

At the bottom of the page, you can find links to all the ideas!

Before we get into the heart of this thrifty DIY side table I want to say a huge thank you to my sweet friend Jen from Midwest Life and Style for putting this together!

She is one of my best friends and you’re going to love everything she does!

I definitely do!

Speaking of which, did you see her Winter Hurricane Candle Holder With Epsom Salt?

Gorgeous!

The Story of Our Beautiful Thrifty DIY Side Table

Would you believe me if I told you this table started out as 4 stair spindles and a taxidermy plaque with a deer head?

Guys, I can’t make this up!

This is a perfect example of the crazy ideas we have over here and then do haha!

The deer head was rotting away but the plaque looked decent.

(We found it down in the chicken house down on the family farm.)

So we removed the head and brought home the plaque.

My original plan was to turn it into a decorative breadboard for the kitchen.

But you know how life is, we brought it home and didn’t touch it for like 4 months haha!

In that 4 month time period, we decided we needed more side tables.

Busy with 2 little girls, my husband and I do morning dates over coffee before he leaves for work.

But we only had one side table in the living room, and it was beside my couch lol!

So my husband asked if we could get another one.

I’d been looking for a cute and thrifty side table, but wasn’t having any luck.

Then out of the blue, my husband announced that we have 4 stair spindles in the basement that we could use to turn that old taxidermy plaque into a side table.

Isn’t he a genius?!

Or is necessity still the mother of all inventions??

I think I’m gonna continue telling him how smart he is lol!

Thrifty DIY Side Table

The vision for this table was that it would add some more of that European farmhouse style to our home.

Now that it’s finished, I feel like we definitely achieved that goal.

It’s not perfect by any stretch.

So it adds the old-world charm that we love.

The top of it is a little wavy, and it has holes from where the deer head was mounted.

But it’s exactly the kind of side table we wanted.

If you’re interested you should definitely check out this post about how easy and beautiful it is to add the casual European country style to your home.

Supplies for a Thrifty DIY Side Table

-taxidermy plaque (or a piece of wood you have lying around that would be suitable for a tabletop)

-4 stair spindles

-1×3

The sizes of the 1×3 needed will vary depending on the size of your tabletop.

Instructions for a Thrifty DIY Side Table

Step 1

The first thing I did was clean off the wood and strip it.

I used Citristrip, and I’ll be honest, I was nervous it wasn’t going to work well.

BUT IT WORKED BEAUTIFULLY!!

I put the Citristrip on the spindles and the taxidermy plaque and then wrapped everything in saran wrap.

This is what happened after a couple of hours.

Step 2

After I scrapped all the Citristrip off I used mineral spirits and some steel wool to clean the tiny bits that might still be on the wood.

This picture was taken when they were still wet from the mineral spirits. They got even lighter once they were dry.

Step 3

After the mineral spirits dried, I grabbed my mouse sander for the spindles and did a “quick once-through” on all of them.

I’m putting this in quotes so you don’t think I only sanded for 15 minutes.

I probably sanded each spindle for 15 minutes.

But this is still remarkably faster than it would have been if I didn’t use the Citristrip first.

I also did the same thing to the taxidermy plaque but I pulled out the belt sander because it was faster.

Step 4

After all the recycled wood was stripped and cleaned, it was time to start turning the new 1×3 into an old beat-up piece like the rest of the side table.

Then I started sanding it to smooth out all the splinters I has created.

One of my little helpers joined me because, why not?!

Next was the fun part.

Mix and match all the many different stains and oils we have in the garage until it looks like the old pieces.

This took some staining and sanding and staining and sanding to get it to the place where we were happy with it.

But truly, I love how close it came to looking like the rest!

Step 5

Next, I put 2 coats of wax on everything.

This changed the color of the wood a little, but not much at all.

It looks really dark in this picture, but once the wax dries and you buff it off, it is really close to the original.

Especially when compared to what poly or danish oil does to the color.

Step 6

Now it was finally time to pull out the saws and drills and start assembling our side table!!!

We cut off one end of the spindles so it looked like a nice rounded foot instead of a square spindle end.

Step 7

Then we took all four spindles and placed them on the taxidermy plaque to figure out the lengths we would need to cut the 1×3 to.

Step 8

After the 1×3’s were cut to the proper lengths, my husband took his Kreg pocket hole jig to drill 2 holes in each side of the 1×3 to screw them to the spindles.

I recommend using a scrap piece of wood if you can first.

It took us a few tries to get the depth right with the length of our screws.

The tip of the screw popped out the end of our first trial piece.

Step 9

Once the spindles were all connected into a square with the 1×3’s in between we took a nail gun and simply nailed the taxidermy plaque down to the four corners where the spindles were.

We looked at a couple of vintage pieces of furniture we have and noticed this was a technique that was used on them.

So we decided to use it for this one too.