Wooden Pedestal Table: Three Creative Ideas
Most department stores sell cheap wooden pedestal tables. These low-maintenance pieces of furniture, while not designed to hold a lot of weight, can make an inexpensive addition to a room in need of some life. The problem is that the three-legged tables, with tops made of blandly colored pressed wood chips, are quite unattractive when untouched. Instead of buying a tragically frilly table cloth to drape over the wooden pedestal table, try these three creative ideas, all of which are inexpensive, easy, and fun.
Wooden Pedestal Table: Hula Style
I admit that I’m stealing this idea from Todd Oldham, who showcased it during “Todd Time” on MTV’s House of Style in the early 1990s. Since it’s been about fifteen years, I figured it was worth resurrecting his ingenuity. Find a hula skirt (either the beige straw kind of the green plasticky kind) with enough waistband to wrap completely around the circumference of the wooden pedestal table. Then use a staple gun to attach it neatly, shooting the staples into the sides of the table top. Trim the length of the hula skirt so that it just brushes the ground, and you’re already done with your Hawaiian-style wooden pedestal table! Note, however, that you if you plan to decorate the surface of the table top, you should complete that before attaching the skirt.
Wooden Pedestal Table: Penny-Topped
For literally just a few pennies, you can create an interesting top surface for your wooden pedestal table. Select a wide array of pennies, paying attention to wear and brightness. The charm of this look depends not on uniformity but on diversity, so I recommend including all conditions of pennies except the blackest, dingiest coins and the shiniest, newest coins (because those are too distracting). Simply take a hot glue gun and begin gluing the pennies to the surface, leaving as little room between them as possible and creating a mosaic look. Do all heads, all tails, or even a mix. The side of the table top can also be covered if you wish. And for those high rollers out there who don’t want the coppery look of pennies, you can always opt for silvery nickels – or maybe even a hodgepodge of coins.
Wooden Pedestal Table: Tricolor
One practical, spiffy way to bring together colors in a room is to create a piece of furniture that combines, even self-consciously, the hues you’re seeking to unite. Using spraypaint (always the easiest), re-do each leg in a different color and select one (or more) of those colors for the top. I’ve seen this done to collect aqua, black, and orange together in one piece of furniture. Each leg sported a different color, and the top of the table was finished with a simple black. This particular table was home to a goldfish bowl with aqua-colored stones, so the look was perfect for the table’s usage. But the great thing about spraypaint and cheap wooden pedestal tables is that you can easily experiment with different colors and make changes as needed.
