For the last few days, I’ve been working on cleaning up this old cigar table for a coworker of mine. She had asked that I replace the wood screws and tighten up the wobble in the legs, but I thought I could do a little more. Below, you can see the table as I received it. It was wobbly, was missing screws, had no door, and had the original stain covered up with paint.

To review Part 1 and Part 2, I disassembled the table, sanded for about four hours, put it all back together, and filled in the cracks and screw holes with wood putty. I also fabricated a new door and a new wood panel for the top of the cabinet portion of the table. After the wood putty cured for 24 hours, I sanded it flush with the rest of the legs and stained the entire table using Minwax Early American wood stain. I’ll probably add a coat or two of polyurethane to protect the new finish, but haven’t as of yet. I think the new and old panels match really well with the new stain. While you can still see the putty in the wood screw holes, I believe it looks much better than holes. It’ll also keep the wood screws from coming lose again in the future.

If you’ve got an old piece of furniture like this, I think you can make yourself really happy by spending some time fixing it up instead of throwing it out. My costs for this project were under 50 dollars, not including time in the shop. Since it’s you and your shop/basement/driveway, your time is free so go wild. Impress yourself with your skills. Save something beautiful. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks for reading. -Robby