DIY DOWEL TABLE

It seems like using dowels for furniture & projects has been all the rage these days! I had to try it out! We got an old office table off of Facebook Marketplace for $30 and turned it into a beautiful masterpiece!! (IMO anyway haha). Below I will be going through the step-by-step process we took to make it in case you want to try too! You don’t have to do this with a large piece like a table! You can do it with coffee table or end tables too. In all honestly, I can’t take my eyes off of it! We use it everyday in our kitchen as our breakfast nook table.

If you’d like to watch an Instagram Video REEL I made on
the process check it out here!

Materials:

• Old Table (Check Facebook Marketplace!)
• Rustoleum “Linen White” Chalk Paint
• Foam Paint Rollers
• Water Based Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish (I used a Matte Finish)
• 24″ Diameter Form Tube
• Screws/Nails
• Jigsaw (or other type of saw to cut the form tube)
• Gorilla Wood Glue
• Lots and Lots of Half-Round Dowels
• Mitre Saw (To cut the dowels to size)
• Wood Clamps
  
  

Instructions:

Tabletop: I started with removing the round tabletop from the base. I used a foam roller and painted the top with a chalk paint in the shade “Linen White.” I actually did 4 coats of this to make sure it was really on well and you couldn’t see any material underneath. I love using chalk paint as you do NOT have to sand before using it and it sticks well to veneer and these type of materials. The can said to let the paint dry for 2 hours between coats.

I then used a Water Based Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish (I used a Matte Finish but think I would use a Satin if I were to do it again). You MUST have a water based sealant when you are going overtop of white paint. If you don’t get a seal that is water based your white paint will turn yellow! I did 3 coats of the seal as this is a high traffic piece being in our kitchen!

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Base: Now comes the tricky part! Your experience will be different based on how the bottom of your table looks. I’d recommend finding a table with some legs that look like mine below as that is what we nailed the form tube onto and how we got our cylinder shape!

First thing we did was buy a Form Tube! You can get it from almost any hardware store – it’s actually used for cement and is basically just a thick/strong piece of cylindrical cardboard. We needed 1 piece cut to size. The hardware store actually cut it to the proper height for us which was 2 pieces approx 27″ high. We then brought them home and used our jigsaw to cut both pieces right down the middle. These are the two pieces we are attaching around the base to make the cylinder shape!

The form tube is pretty strong so we stretched it out as best we could and wrapped around the base of the table, attaching with screws and nails to the base. (See photo). Once it was screwed/nailed to all 4 legs it was dowel time!!

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Dowels: We used far more dowels than we thought we were going to use so try to calculate at the beginning. This was definitely the most expensive part and what made the price of this DIY skyrocket! We are based in Canada and the best price we could find for an 8 foot tall dowel was $8.50 each at Turkstra Lumbar. If you can find a better price for them let me know! I justify this as tables with a cylinder base go for well over $1000 at retail stores.

I added a line of Gorilla glue to each dowel, checking every so often that it was level. I went around the entire base and clamped some that were being finicky. Only tricky part was the very last piece didn’t fit perfectly in place so we sanded it down until it fit.We then added 3 pieces of rope around the entire thing to hold it tight while it dried overnight.

Finished Product: Here she is!! We had so much fun with this project and still can’t get over the before & after! What do you think?!

If you have any questions about this DIY comment below!

Check out the photos & more DIY’s on my Instagram @thethompsonhaven