We worked to redo a tired, old side table. You can do this with pretty much any wooden piece of furniture, a little time and some creativity. We started by coming up with the theme (antique-rustic). And bought:
- wood stain
- polyurethane
- a sander (optional, but more than pays for itself through the course of the project)
- new knobs
- 1/2 yard of fabric (we chose suede)
- pillow stuffing

Step 1: Sand

You have to sand the furniture completely, leave only the bare wood as that will absorb the stain. Be sure to stain in the direction of the wood.

Step 2: Remove the Slats

We removed the ugly slats to replace it with beauitful, new inlays. It was unfortunately more diffcult than we had anticipated to remove the center slats, we actually had to cut them out!

Step 3: Making the Inlay

We had a thin sheet of wood laying around that we used to make the inlays. Simply cut a a piece of wood to the appropriate size, lay some pillow stuffing evenly between the suede and wood layer then attach. The wood doesn't have to be expensive, heavy-duty stuff..... unless you have destructive pets and children :)
Ours was thin enough that we could attach the suede to the plank using a generic office stapler.

To secure the inlays to the cabinet we simply cut a piece of the same wood, larger. That laid over the backside (giving it a nice finished backing) and we used small wood nails to attach it to the cabinet. The inlays are actually tightly caught between the cabinet and this back support.

Step 4: Voila!

You're done!!!

Make sure whatever stain you use is sealed after, we used polyurethane to seal ours.
A tip: lay several coats and make them thick. Once you're finished, go back over the furniture with a fine grit sand paper (we used 20) to take the rough edge off and give it a nice finish.
Protected and smooth!

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