A few weeks ago, I woke up and was browsing through pinterest looking at home decorating ideas. I came across a video showing a girl glueing and nailing plywood planks to her plastic folding table, and it just blew me away! I thought to myself, let me see if I can do it. Next thing I know, I’m at Lowes shopping for wood, glue, and paint materials. As you can see, I have an impulse on doing things like this where I don’t plan my projects. I just do it when I’m motivated and inspired enough to jump on it (that’s probably how my business got started). So, here’s how it went with my very FIRST DIY project.

I have a plastic dark gray picnic table that I just can’t stand. After purchasing my patio furnitures, I wanted to get rid of this table because quite frankly, it doesn’t match. Everyday, as I’m sitting in my backyard admiring my lawn and enjoying the weather, I can’t help but have a twitching eye knowing that this unpleasant table is sitting in the corner.

Here’s what I bought at Lowes:

• 2 tubes of Liquid Nails Heavy Duty
• 1 box of 8″x2.5″ Fast-n-Tite Wood nails
• 5 pinewood planks 1″ x 9″ x 72″
• 9 pinewood planks 2.5″ x 1″ x 72″
• 1 qt of Minwax Wood Finish paint stain
• Paint Brush

I started off by gluing the plywood down onto the plastic table. My picnic table is about 72″ x 30″. Then I used bricks and rocks to hold it down which I highly do not recommend. My rookie brain say “this will work”, all because I didn’t want to run back to Lowes to buy clamps. SO, make no mistakes and use clamps, and let the glue dry for a couple of hours. Here’s a short time-lapse video of me gluing it down.

Next step is to nail the plywood (size 2.5″ x 1″ x 72″) onto the side of the table. You’ll have to cut the wood to the proper length. I used a hand saw, but if you can get yourself an electric saw, it will save you 10 minutes. I nailed these into the wood so that they are attached to the table. As you can see from my photo below, I did this around 8pm at night. Talk about determination!!

All done!! It is now 10:00pm at night, and I am beat! To be continue tomorrow.

It is now 7am the next morning, and yes, this one day project just turned into two days. I am loving the way my table is coming together, and couldn’t wait to finish it!

Today is paint day! Pick a paint color and a brush and stain your wood. I choose watered oak 270 by Minwax Wood Finish.

Viola!! This is it!! It’s all done! Don’t forget to seal the paint with a sealant (I have yet to do this 😬). You guys have no idea how excited I was to complete this table! It has some imperfection, but I am loving it!! This is my first ever DIY project, and I literally feel like I can build anything!! I’m so movtivated that I’m now thinking about my next project.

Now that the table is done, the fun part was decorating it and getting it ready for Mother’s Day.

Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate you being here and I hope you learn something today, such as, don’t use bricks and painters tape to hold down glued plywood. Read through more of my decorating tips/ideas or shop my online store Birch Tier Market.