Scavenger Chic

Upcycled Vintage Door Coffee Table

• By Joan
• May 4, 2022
• 2 Comments

Upcycled Door Coffee Table

My oldest son, Keith, lives fairly close to an apartment complex where they have a great unwanted furniture pile. It’s all ready for bulk pickup or a local scavenger, whoever gets there first.

Keith passes by this treasure trove often on his daily doggy walks.  This was the picture he sent me a couple of weeks ago, he wanted to know if I was interested in some table legs or a pair of chairs.

The legs didn’t excite me, I already have too many chairs so I’ll leave them for someone else, but what are those little legs all the way in the back? I always need legs and legs are expensive.

By the time I responded to his text and put in my order/request he was already home from his walk.

So imagine my  surprise  when he showed up with the little stool the following week.

They just happened to still be there on the next doggy walk.  And now Keith is once again my favorite son.  😀 

The legs were super loose and no tools were necessary to remove the bolts.

Those legs were going to pair very nicely with this vintage door.  You can see that coffee table, can’t you?

I’m stressing vintage door because they are more likely to be made of solid wood, not the cardboard filler more modern doors are created from. You can tell  whether your door is solid because of the weight.

The right side of this door, the longer panel, was the basis for last week’s project, a framed menu board.

The left side of the door, the shorter panel, will be my table top.

I just needed to do a few patches, this slim piece of wood is glued into place to cover where the hinge would have sat.  Glue, clamp and let dry.

Another piece of scrap wood fills in where the old lock set would have fit.  This too was glued into place and let dry.

When the glue from these 2 patches was dry, I filled any remaining gaps with wood putty,  let dry and sand.

The skirt of the coffee table was made from wood cut off of the sides and the ends of the larger door panel.

You may notice that there is a lip on these legs, that’s what determined how wide my skirt would be.

I mitered the ends of the skirt with  45° cuts.

Glue the corners together.

I held the corners together with finish nails from a nail gun while the glue dried.

I’m using 3″ long wood screws.   I’ve predrilled a 1/4″ hole wherever I want the screws so the head will be countersunk.

 Make sure your screw is long enough that it goes into the top but not so long that it goes thru the top.

Apply a liberal amount of wood glue to attach the skirt to the upcycled door.   Screw in the wood screws.

For the legs, I cut pieces of scrap wood with mitered ends just long enough to hold the legs tightly in their corners.  I used lots of wood glue and  screwed the corner pieces into the coffee table skirt and into the legs.

This may look a little weird, but this is the start of my red coffee table.  This is black chalk paint just painted on the edges.

The black chalk paint is followed by a coat  (or 2) of red chalk paint.

When the paint is dry, lightly sand the edges of your coffee table to reveal those layers of paint or wood.

The red is rather bright for me, so a coat of antique wax not only dirties up the red color but also provides a nice waxy smooth finish to the somewhat flat and rough chalk paint.

When the wax is dry, buff with fine steel wool.

Here you can see some of the black chalk paint, a little wood and even a little white from the original upcycled door.

Yup, 2 projects from one upcycled door.

Once again, you can find the Menu board here.

This is my 24th? upcycled coffee table.  If you need more inspiration you can find them all here.

Until next time, stay inspired.

Related posts:

Upcycled Washtubs and an Old Door Upcycled Door, Menu Chalkboard DIY DIY Backgammon Board with a Recycled Door DIY Parcheesi Game Board from an old Door