Duncan Phyfe Table Makeover

Hi everyone! As you know I love our entryway in our new home, mostly because I love our curved staircase. The staircase being curved makes a nice little curved niche for the right entry way table. That was the problem. Finding the right table for that nice little space. I knew I wanted a round pedestal table but do you think I could find one in the right size anywhere? at the right price? No, wasn’t happening. Then one day at my local charity shop my mom and I found this Duncan Phyfe table. Only problem was that it wasn’t round.

The table was all of $14.99 so I just had to have It. I figured we would be able to give it a makeover and it would be the perfect table. So I brought this little beauty home.

First step in the table makeover was to flip it upside down and take the top off. I also removed the hinges that attached the leaves to the middle section of the table. The plan was to glue the two leaf sections together and then cut it into a circle for the top. For that I needed to pack the table up and take it over to my dad’s basement work shop. He’s got all the tools you could possible want or need!

Once it was taken all apart and transported over to the folks place it was time to prepare the two leaf sections to be glued together. My dad cut the little rounded tab part off (I know, I use such technical terms) of the edge so that the two pieces would fit nicely together.

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Then we used some wood glue and clamps and glued the two pieces together. My dad also said we needed to use the biscuit joiner…???? Ok dad, go for it. As I understand it, little slots are cut with the biscuit joiner and little wooden biscuits are inserted into the slots to hold the two leaves of the table together better. Sorry, but I didn’t manage to get a picture of this step. Ooops. Then we let it dry until the next day.

While it was drying I spent the time removing the layers and layers of varnish on the base of the table. To do this I used a gel varnish stripper. Make sure you use gloves because this stuff will burn your skin. Also a good scraper comes in handy to scrape off the gel/melted varnish goop. Use a small paint brush to brush the gel onto the wood. Let it sit for the recommended time and then use the scraper to scrape off the goop. I used an old plastic container to put the goopy stuff into. It’s also a good idea to have some rags or paper towels handy for wiping up and spills or cleaning off tools. You can see in the pictures how the varnish bubbles up. Love this method over sanding any day!

After all of the varnish was removed from the base I did do a little sanding. The legs of the table have quite a few deep grooves that I needed to make sure were clean of varnish. See, I do sand if I really, really, really need to!

Back to the table top. Now it was time to create the round table top. We created a cardboard template so that we could draw a circle onto the piece of wood. Then my dad used his jig saw to carefully cut out the round circle from the piece of wood. I removed the varnish on the table top the same way I did for the base and then my dad sanded and sanded and sanded. He loves to sand! Guess I didn’t get that gene.

One other thing that I did was to chop off a bit of the end of the table legs. I know, antique lovers are probably screaming at me right about now. At the time I didn’t realize that I had bought an official Duncan Phyfe table with the signature metal toe cap. I learned this later after doing some research. Anyway they got chopped off and I rounded the ends by lightly sanding them.

The original base of the table had quite a big box around it to hold up the table top. My mom and I had several discussions on whether we should remove it completely or not. In the end she convinced me to remove it and I think that was the best decision. It makes the table look so much better.

Then I cut and attached small blocks of wood from the original box around the table, to the big block in the centre. These blocks of wood have the original holes in them that the screws go into. This would allow me to be able to attach the top to the base. Next I stained the table base and the top with varathane brand in the colour kona.

I brushed on the stain with a paint brush first and then I used an old rag to rub it in. This will help with brush stroke marks. We don’t want those. Then I finished off with a couple of coats of Polycrylic in a satin finish. And voila I had the table of my dreams! It fits perfectly in the entry way space.