Antique Side Table Makeover: A Step-by-Step Guide

I’ve been on a furniture flipping kick over the past couple of months. I’ve done several projects and am always searching for more. So, when I saw these antique side tables on Facebook Marketplace for $5 I was out the door!

I knew by just looking at the style of them that they were old and good quality. After getting them home and taking a better look at them, they were even nicer than I initially thought.

They are solid wood (cherry, I think) and have brass casters and details. I loved them so much that I immediately started talking my husband into keeping them!

Here’s how I did an antique side table makeover:

Step 1: Fix Broken Legs

The reason these antique side tables were SO CHEAP was that one of them had two broken legs. If I had to guess, someone sat on the table, and it snapped two of the legs off inside the casters.

To try to fix it, the previous owner had poured some kind of epoxy down in the caster to stick it back on, but it didn’t work.

So, before this antique side table makeover could even begin, we had to fix the broken legs.

I used a Dremel rotary tool to drill the broken piece of the leg and epoxy out of the caster.

Once the caster was cleaned out, we had to replace the piece of leg that snapped off. Since the new piece of wood would be inside the caster and not visible, we opted to use a cheap wooden dowel. We found a dowel as close to the size of the table leg as possible, then cut a piece of it to the correct length. Then sanded it down to the exact size.

When it was the right size and shape to fit into the caster, we screwed it onto the bottom of the broken leg.

The other ‘broken’ leg wasn’t actually broken. The caster had lost its screws and come off, so we just had to find new tiny screws and put the caster back on. (A pretty easy fix!)

Step 2: Strip the Paint

This wasn’t my first rodeo with paint stripping. However, I have NEVER had more issues stripping paint than I did with these antique side tables.

I’ve used several different paint strippers, but this time I decided to try Klean Strip. It has glowing reviews online and everyone talked about how fast it works. And they’re not wrong.

It worked TOO fast.

My plan was to apply the paint stripper to the doors and two sides of one of the tables. However, by the time I got the doors coated in stripper and one of the sides done, the paint was bubbled up on the doors and the stripper was drying out.

Trying to scrape off the dried on paint stripper was a nightmare. It left thick, extremely sticky gunk EVERYWHERE.

I used acetone to clean the residue off, but it took several rounds of acetone to get it all off.

To try to combat this, I only coated one side of the table at a time. I put the paint stripper on and within 15 minutes, it was ready to scrape off.

The paint came off easily. However, the varnish underneath the paint was ridiculously hard to remove. It is what created the sticky residue.

To remove both layers, I did a round of paint stripper to remove the paint. Went back with another round of paint stripper to remove the varnish. Then poured acetone directly onto the surface and wiped it off with a rag to remove the residue.

It was a tedious, stinky, and time-consuming process.

For the second, antique side table, I sanded as much of it as possible and only used paint stripper for the details that I didn’t want to sand. This made the whole process go MUCH faster.

Step 3: Light Sanding

After the paint, varnish, and (most of) the residue were off the tables, I did a light sanding.

Using my orbital sander and 220-grit sanding pad, I went over the whole table to make sure there was no residue left behind.

For the areas that I couldn’t reach with the orbital sander, I sanded by hand with a sanding sponge or a folded sanding pad.

Step 4: Cleaning Up the Details

Despite using a wire brush to scrub the paint stripper around the details and round legs of the tables, there was still some paint left behind.

I used a chisel to meticulously scrape as much of this paint off as possible. It was also a tediously, painstaking process.

If I had to do it again, I would have done one more round of paint stripper and acetone on those areas. Even though the paint stripping was a pain in the butt, it would have been worth it.

It seemed that every step of this antique side table makeover was going to be tedious!

Step 5: Staining

Finally, all of the prep work was complete and I could move on to making the tables pretty again!

As much as I LOVED the natural wood tone of the tables, they were a little blotchy. I’m not sure why, but there were spots that were much darker than others.

To try and even it out as much as possible, we used a medium wood stain.

I applied the stain with a rag and made sure to wipe off any excess to prevent streaks.

Step 6: Add a Top Coat

The next step in our antique side table makeover was to add a top coat.

I’ve been trying different top coats lately, but after all the hours I spent working on these table, I didn’t want to risk messing them up. So, I stuck with my tried and true Polycrylic.

We sprayed the sides and legs of the tables with a can of spray-on Polycrylic. But for the top, we wanted to make sure it had a good, thick coat on it to protect the wood from water rings if someone set a drink on it. So, we did traditional Polycrylic on the table tops.

To apply the poly on top, we poured it on and spread it out with a lambskin applicator. We used a craft sponge brush to get it into the edges the big applicator couldn’t reach.

We did 4 coats of polycrylic on the top, lightly hand-sanding between each coat.

(Lightly sanding between coats of polycrylic helps give it a smooth finish.)

Step 7: Clean Up and Add Hardware

These antique side tables had brass details on top of the legs. We used a polishing wheel on our drill to make them shine. We also used the polishing wheel on the casters.

I didn’t like the style of knobs/pulls on the doors, so I ordered new ones from Amazon. Since they had to be pretty small to fit so close together, I opted for 1/2″ mini knobs.

The hinges had paint on them. To remove it, I soaked them in acetone for 15 minutes, then scrubbed them with a brush in the sink. The paint came off easily!

After letting the last coat of Polycrylic cure for 24 hours and putting the hinges and doors back on, the antique side tables were done!

And I think they turned out beautifully!

This was my first ‘restoration’ project. While I’ve stripped paint and ‘brought back’ wood before, I had never done the entire piece of furniture. So, this was definitely a learning experience for me.

And the best part is…I talked my husband into keeping them! He doesn’t want to part with the end tables that we’ve had for years. So, we decided to use them in the girls’ rooms as nightstands.

(Sorry for the picture overload….I am obsessed!)