When I was growing up in our family home in California, there was a beautiful old tree in the front garden, right outside my window. I loved watching the change of seasons played out in its leaves, and the little birds who built nests in its branches. It was there when we moved into the house in the early 80s, and since it was so old we thought it must have been around since the house was built in 1947.
Sadly, a couple of years ago it just died, and came crashing down in a bad winter storm:
My mother paid a neighbor to cut it down. I wanted to save it, so I asked for it to be sawed into stumps that we could use in our own home, one day (we had not bought our house at that time).
Since I don't have any DIY experience, I looked online for tutorials for making a tree stump into a side table. I found the best one here, on The Art of Doing Stuff blog. It was wonderful: very detailed and didn't look too hard!
First, we let the stump dry out for over a year in the hot summer sun. Then, we pried off the bark with a prybar:
With the bark off, it looked like this:
Then we sanded it with an electric sander. You can do this by hand, but since our stump had so many bumps we just didn't have the time to do that.
When sanded, it looked like this:
Then, we decided to fill in a big gash running down the stump with wood filler. We could have left it alone, but worried about bugs coming out of it one day. I wasn't thrilled with the filled-in effect, but in the end it wasn't too bad:
Even though it was a pale shade of filler, it still stood out a bit:
Then, we sanded down the filled-in gaps:
Afterwards, it looked like this:
Then, we sealed the entire stump with several coats of Minwax "Polyshades", or stain-and-polyurethane in one can. This took over a week since you have to let the stain dry out for at least a day before applying another coat.
Finally, we decided to paint the top since the filler was so prominent there. First, a coat of primer:
Followed by some leftover paint, and voila, here's the finished tree stump (side without the gash):
And here's the side with the filled-in gash. Though it's visible, it doesn't look bad:
Sadly, a couple of years ago it just died, and came crashing down in a bad winter storm:
My mother paid a neighbor to cut it down. I wanted to save it, so I asked for it to be sawed into stumps that we could use in our own home, one day (we had not bought our house at that time).
Since I don't have any DIY experience, I looked online for tutorials for making a tree stump into a side table. I found the best one here, on The Art of Doing Stuff blog. It was wonderful: very detailed and didn't look too hard!
First, we let the stump dry out for over a year in the hot summer sun. Then, we pried off the bark with a prybar:
With the bark off, it looked like this:
Then we sanded it with an electric sander. You can do this by hand, but since our stump had so many bumps we just didn't have the time to do that.
When sanded, it looked like this:
Then, we decided to fill in a big gash running down the stump with wood filler. We could have left it alone, but worried about bugs coming out of it one day. I wasn't thrilled with the filled-in effect, but in the end it wasn't too bad:
Even though it was a pale shade of filler, it still stood out a bit:
Then, we sanded down the filled-in gaps:
Afterwards, it looked like this:
Then, we sealed the entire stump with several coats of Minwax "Polyshades", or stain-and-polyurethane in one can. This took over a week since you have to let the stain dry out for at least a day before applying another coat.
Finally, we decided to paint the top since the filler was so prominent there. First, a coat of primer:
Followed by some leftover paint, and voila, here's the finished tree stump (side without the gash):
And here's the side with the filled-in gash. Though it's visible, it doesn't look bad:
It stands next to our mid-century rocking armchair:
I adore this little stump table, and am so thankful that the tree that stood outside my window will now be with us forever. It's more than a piece of furniture -- it's an old friend.
