Scavenger Chic

DIY Wire Spool Coffee Table

• By Joan
• October 30, 2024
• 3 Comments

Wire Spool Coffee Table

Today we’re making this wire spool into a coffee table.    This spool is not overly large, it is only 13″ in height and 23″ in diameter.  It’s not quite  the perfect coffee table size but it’s close enough.

I’ve seen a bunch of wire spool coffee tables but they almost always look like a wire spool.  Just paint the spool and call it a coffee table.  I say no, no.  You don’t want anyone to know you pulled this thing out of a dumpster.  We need to make this thing chic.

To bring the wire spool up to coffee table height I’m using  four, 3 inch pieces of a 4×4 for feet.  A typical coffee table is 16-18 inches tall, mine is just a little short.

 The 4 corners were trimmed with a chop saw then sanded smooth.

Screw the  feet  onto the bottom of the spool from the inside.

Finish as desired though you’re not going to see much of the feet on the finished project. This is dark walnut varathane.  Since you aren’t  going to see much of your feet just use anything you have on hand, even paint.

For the sides of the coffee table I took old hard wood flooring rescued from a scrap pile. Each of the hard wood flooring pieces was chopped  in half leaving me with beautiful  1″ (ish) strips of  oak.

The slats were then cut to my desired height of 16 inches.  Overall I ended up using 67 slats.

Sand the finish off of all your oak flooring slats.

Before attaching the slats I stained them with a very light coat of black chalk paint mixed with water.  Wipe on with a rag and wipe off the excess.

With a nail gun and finish nails attach the oak slats  directly to the wire spool using the tongue and groove when available .  Use a level to make sure each individual slat is perfectly vertical. My slats were elevated about 1/4″ off the floor so the slats don’t sit directly on the floor.  Use a shim under the slats so all the pieces are elevated exactly the same.

In my case, my wire spool was not level.   When I was finished, some of the slats rose about an inch over the top of the spool, some, only 1/4″.

To make up for the difference in levels, before I attached a top, I nailed on different thicknesses of wood ranging from a shutter slat in the below left corner to 1 inch flooring in the upper right.  Now I had something to attach my top to.  None of these boards should extend above the slats.

Cut boards for your top.  I thought I had enough wood from that wide oak panel ,you see above, for the entire project, but I  had to fill in with even more hardwood flooring.

Draw a circle overtop of your boards  based on how much of an overhang you would like.  I’ll be using a glass top so my overhang is only 1/4″.  Without a glass top I would want at least a 1″ overhang.  Cut the circle with a scroll saw or jigsaw.

Sand your pieces well getting rid of all the old finish and softening the edges.

You can see the hardwood flooring piece in the bottom left has lost all it’s orange shiny finish.

You can’t tell here, but the top is now attached to the wire spool using my handy dandy nail gun and even more finish nails.

Clean your wood with a lint free cloth before finishing with the stain and varnish of your choice.  This is Watco, dark walnut danish oil.  Wipe on with a lint free cloth and let dry.  Buff with fine steel wool to get a super smooth finish.  Repeat until you have the darkness you desire.

I also used the danish oil on the slats covering the sides.

My only problem here is the wood looks too new.  It didn’t have the same age as the hard wood flooring sides.

Back to the watered down black paint.  I resanded just the edges of the top and wiped on the black paint.  Where the paint got too dark I wiped it off with a wet paper towel.

If you choose to go without a glass top, your coffee table is complete.

Of course you can buy a glass top new but for me, thrifting is always better.  I’m using something that someone has discarded and the cost is so much better.  I found this brass coffee table at the local Goodwill for only $15.  Just the  38″ glass on this table would run me about $90 or more.

With Google Lens , I looked up my table and found that this glass didn’t even  go with this table in the first place. 

I also found someone on 1st Dibs listing the table for $1,015, I can replace my glass.  Any offers?  🙂

The glass did extend over the sides of the coffee table by about 6″ in all directions.  I wanted to make this look like a feature rather than a mistake.

I needed to add brackets.

I cut down an old  2×6 into 2 inch strips until I had 7, 2×2’s, each 7 inches long with mitered 45° ends.

Sand your brackets well.  These too got a coat of the Watco danish oil.

I predrilled a hole then screwed the brackets directly to the coffee table  Their placement was determined by counting the number of  slats and dividing by the number of brackets  (67/7), so about every 9 1/2 slats I would screw in a bracket.

Note: Place your glass on top as you add the brackets to make sure you’re attaching them at the perfect level.

The screw head was covered with these 1 ” large upholstery nails I used on a previous project.

I believe this is coffee table number  25!! (or more).

You can find all the upcycled coffee table inspiration you will ever need here.  Until next time…

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