Ballard Designs Inspired Spool Side Table

October 13, 2011 in Building and Repurposing, Furniture Makeovers, Living Room

Confession… I was originally going to post about this project next Friday, but I just couldn’t stand to wait that long! I was too excited to share it with each and every one of you.  Fair warning… this post has a LOT of pictures. I tried to keep them small, but if you’d like to see them larger, just give them a click and you can see more detail!

For the longest time I’ve looked at spools and thought they could be vamped up to make pretty fabulous side tables. I’ve seen oodles of them outside as patio tables, but I wanted to give it a whirl for an inside side table. When I saw this Ballard Designs $200 spool table I knew I had to try.

I’ll confess. From the get-go I knew I wasn’t going to achieve quite this look. I snagged a spool for $5 from Habitat Restore and hauled it home.

         

Broke out my good ol’ handy dandy sander and went to town. This probably took me 20 minutes tops to go over the top and bottom pieces and all the vertical slats.

At this point I gave it two coats of Minwax Special Walnut. While the second coat was drying I headed to Orschlens to pick up some supplies for a different project. …and you’re NOT going to believe the deal I found!

Yep… that price sticker definitely says $.10 a foot!!!!!  Originally $1.24, I snagged 150 feet of this 3/4″ rope for a whopping $15.  SCORE!  Originally I was looking for something a bit softer looking, but I absolutely couldn’t turn down this deal.

When my second coat of stain was dry I applied two thin coats of Minwax water-based Polycrylic.  So far I’ve been really pleased with this product. I used it on my Butcher Block Island Makeover earlier this year and the finish is holding up REALLY well. I’ve even had to scrub the heck outta it after accidentally spraying it with adhesive spray. Whoops!  But the good news is now we know the poly is some durable stuff!

…but I digress. Back to the spool. Focus Dana!  (This is how much of my stories go in person too……. lots of sidenotes…. and LENGTHY!)

SPOOL. Got it. I’m focused.

Stain. Check. Poly. Check. …speaking of…. check out the awesome wood grain in the vertical boards. LUV it. I actually half-considered not wrapping the spool with rope just so I could show off those boards… for about 2 seconds. :-)   Also, take a look at the hole in the side at the bottom below. Remember that…. it’s going to come in handy later… which is funny because at first I was really bummed it was there!

         

Time to wrap the rope!  I used my brad nailer/stapler with 1″ staples to affix the rope snugly to the spool. I started by pushing a couple inches of rope in the hole at the bottom and stapling it just outside the hole…

         

Every 2-4 times around I’d push the rope down and pull it tight before firing another staple into it. You can see the tip of my stapler in the photo above. Ladies… if you haven’t used one before, it’s a MUST have. I have a brad nailer and a finish nailer…. and love them both to pieces.

I made it a point to shoot two staples in every time just to be sure I had a nice tight hold of the rope. I angled them a bit and tried to send them through towards the edge of the rope in hopes of really sinking deep into the wood.

Almost done!  I should mention that I was SO dizzy while wrapping this silly thing. Clearly I was never a ballerina or an ice princess…. because just walking circles around this spool with the rope was making my world spin. I won’t lie… I sat down twice to steady myself. :-)

When I got to the top I TRIED to use my knife to cut the rope. Turns out it’s not sharp. AT. ALL. As in you probably couldn’t slice your finger even if you tried.  Instead, I broke out my cheap-o miter saw from the $8 yellow miter box set at Lowes. That thing is handy to have around. (side note… don’t groan… that cheap-o miter saw is also good for trimming low branches!)

….and here she is… all finished up and waiting to come inside.

         

….and here are a few (too many) shots of it sitting in the living room!

         

         

….and my cup of hot chocolate is sitting on her as I type this post!   Well, what do you think of my $20 spool side table?  I know it’s more rustic than Ballard Design’s version… but I’ll take a $20 table over a $200 out of my pocket any day!

…and as always, if you decide to make your own spool table I would LOVE to see your version!  Send me a link to your post or even email me a photo – craftedniche{at}gmail{dot}com  Who knows… maybe we should start featuring some of them HERE to help get people’s confidence and creativity going!

Have a great weekend everyone!

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…and extra special thanks to Home Stories A2Z!

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