Upcycling a Side Table for a Reading Corner

Why a Side Table Belongs in a Reading Corner

A reading corner lives or dies by one thing: whether you can reach everything you need without leaving your seat. A mug of tea, a pair of glasses, the book you have just put down, a notebook for the lines you want to remember. A slim side table solves all of it, and it does so in less than half a metre of floor space.

New side tables are often surprisingly expensive for what they are, and the flat-pack options tend to look exactly like flat-pack. A charity-shop table, on the other hand, is usually solid wood, often pleasantly dated, and costs less than a round of drinks. With an afternoon of sanding and painting, it becomes the piece that makes the whole nook feel deliberate.

Sourcing the Right Table

Charity shops, car boot sales, and the odd kerbside freebie are your hunting grounds. Look for a table between 45cm and 60cm tall — roughly level with the arm of your chair — and wide enough for a mug plus a book, so around 35cm square or more.

What to check before you hand over your money:

• Wobble: give it a gentle shove. A slight rock usually means a loose joint you can tighten or glue, but a badly split leg is more trouble than it is worth.
• Veneer: run your fingertips over the top. Lifting or bubbling veneer is hard to disguise and will show through paint within a year.
• Drawers: open and close them. If a drawer sticks now, it will stick worse once it is painted.
• Woodworm: small, perfectly round holes with a dusting of fine powder underneath are a no. Occasional old holes with no fresh dust are usually historic and harmless.

Small scratches and a tired finish are ideal — they are exactly what a tin of paint is for.

Sanding and Preparation

This is the stage people rush, and it is the stage that decides whether your finish lasts. Work outside or in a well-ventilated space, and wear a dust mask.

Start with a medium abrasive, around 100 to 120 grit, to flatten any flaking finish and scuff the surface so the primer has something to grip. Follow with 180 grit, then finish with 240 grit for a smooth, slightly keyed surface. If the table is bare, unvarnished wood, you can skip the coarse stage entirely.

Sand with the grain wherever you can, and be gentle on corners and mouldings — it is very easy to sand through a sharp edge and lose its crispness. Pay attention to the areas your hands will touch: the top, the front edge, and the drawer front.

When the sanding is done, wipe the whole table down with a damp cloth and let it dry, then go over it with a tack cloth or a lightly dampened microfibre to lift the last of the dust. Any dust left behind will sit under your paint like grit in icing.

If you are removing an old knob, fill the hole with a two-part wood filler, let it harden fully, and sand it flush. Prime over the filler before painting, or it will show as a dull patch.

Priming and Painting

Choose a water-based primer designed for wood, especially if the table has an old varnish or a dark stain you want to block. One thin coat is almost always better than one thick one. Brush it on in the direction of the grain and let it dry for the time stated on the tin, usually four to six hours.

For the colour, a chalk-finish or eggshell paint in a water-based formula works beautifully on furniture. Eggshell gives a subtle sheen that wipes clean, which matters in a room with teacups. Chalk finishes give that soft, matte, country-cottage look but benefit from a protective wax or varnish on the top surface.

A few practical points:

• Thin coats, two or three of them. A foam roller gives a smooth, even finish on flat tops; a decent brush gets into the corners and mouldings.
• Lightly sand between coats with 320 grit once the paint is fully dry, then wipe away the dust.
• Paint the drawer separately, removed from the table, and tape over the runners. Never paint the runners themselves — that is the quickest way to a drawer that jams.
• Leave the inside of the drawer bare, or line it with a sheet of patterned paper glued in with a thin layer of PVA.
• Let the paint cure for around seven days before putting anything heavy or hot on the top. It will feel dry long before it is hard.

Adding the Drawer Knob

A new knob is a small, cheap change with an outsized effect. Brushed brass, aged nickel, painted ceramic, or a wooden sphere — anything that picks up a colour already in the room works well.

Measure the distance between the centres of any existing holes and match it, or fill the old hole and drill fresh. Most knobs come with an M4 bolt, so a 4mm drill bit is usually right; check the bolt against your bit before you start.

Stick a strip of masking tape over the spot you intend to drill. It stops the bit wandering and reduces chipping around the edge. Drill from the front of the drawer, so the crispest cut is on the face you will see, then thread the bolt through from the inside and screw the knob on until it is snug — not forced, or you will crack a ceramic knob or crush the timber.

If your table has no drawer, you can still join in. A single knob fixed to the centre of a side panel, or a small cup handle used purely as decoration, adds the same finished touch.

Setting Up the Corner

Position the table slightly forward of your chair so you are not twisting to reach it, and on the side of your dominant hand. On top, keep it simple: a small lamp or a candle, a coaster, and whatever you are currently reading. The drawer is for the rest — a bookmark, a pen, a spare pair of reading glasses, a folded pair of socks for cold evenings.

Add a throw over the back of the chair, angle the lamp so the light falls over your shoulder rather than into your eyes, and you have a corner that invites you to sit down. The table, freshly painted and quietly handsome, will look as though it has always been there.