Before & After: From Plain to Simple & Scandinavian-Inspired Tripod Side Table

Written by

Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
For more than 10 years, I've led Apartment Therapy's real home content, producing thousands of house tours from around the world. Currently, I live in my maximalist dream home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with my partner, a perfect dog, and a cute cat.
published May 18, 2014
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Post Image
(Image credit: Amanda Youngquist)

What do you do when you find a sad little tripod table with potential for free by a garbage can? If you’re Amanda, you take it home with you, give its top a sweet makeover and sit back to enjoy your transformed handiwork.

(Image credit: Amanda Youngquist)

From Amanda:

I came home the other day to find this rather sad little table sitting by my garbage can. She wasn’t much to look at while she was sitting forlornly by my garbage cans. She brought back somewhat unpleasant memories of those deceptively wobbly tables covered in a round cloth with a piece of glass over them which were frequently placed in Church foyers, bathrooms, or nurseries. Man, as a kid, I bet I singlehandedly crashed through about eight of them. Anyway.

This one has nice metal brackets and screw-on legs, so it is actually pretty sturdy — which is good — judging by my past experience. It was also a perfect size for a bedside table, which I needed.

I wanted to go somewhat modern with some hits of Scandinavian design with creamy white and natural wood.


To start on my table, I unscrewed the legs, detached the metal brackets, and spray painted the bottom and legs white. Then I drew a hexagon on the top and back of the table. I used my compound mitre saw and cut angled pieces of lathe wood, which I nailed to the top in a geometric design using finish nails. Some wood filler and sanding and I had a rough hexagon-shaped table top. I finished the edges with iron-on wood veneer edge banding and gave it one more sanding. Danish oil was used to protect the wood and also let the natural wood grain’s beauty stand out.

Find more instructions on how this table was transformed on Amanda’s


Thank you Amanda!