How to turn your favorite inspiration piece into reality for a fraction of the price
When I’m in the market for new home furniture I always do one of two things to get the look at a discount:
- Buy used and refinish the piece, or
- Find an inspiration piece and DIY it!
So when I needed a small side table with storage, I did just that. Unfortunately, I struck out on FB marketplace. None of the side tables listed were just right.
Then I started scouring my favorite furniture brands for an inspiration piece to recreate. When I came across this super cute side table from West Elm I knew I could easily recreate it for a fraction of the price! Below I will walk you through exactly how I did it.
This blog post is sponsored by Kreg Tool but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Step 1: Determine your measurements
When creating a DIY dupe, you can customize as much or as little as you want! I actually love the dimensions of the original piece, so I’m just using the dimensions listed on the website as my cut dimensions.
Step 2: Make your cuts.
You can then use a handy online cut list calculator l to determine how much material to buy. For me, I have some scrap wood in my garage so a 2×4’ piece of plywood was perfect and the little extra I needed could come from scraps.
I then used my circular saw and the Kreg Ascu-Cut to cut down all of the pieces to size. The rounded shelf edges were cut with a jig saw and lightly sanded.
Step 3: Base Assembly
If you are new to woodworking or furniture making and you don’t know about pocket holes yet, let me tell you! Pocket holes are a way of joining two pieces of wood by securing them together with a screw that goes in at an angle. They are super strong joints and are also an easy way to hide screws because you can drill the pocket holes in the back or sides of pieces where the screws won’t be visible. There are jigs out there, like this amazing one by Kreg, that allow you to easily drill accurate and repeatable pocket holes for nearly any project.
So, with that said, using the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig , make pocket holes to attach the back piece and middle divider. Then attach the two sides of the middle shelf in the same manner. The is legit the most amazing jig for making pocket holes! It is so easy to use- no need to adjust for wood thickness and the clamp is super easy to set, even one handed!
Now stain or paint in your desired finish. Here I chose Minwax Special Walnut stain.
Step 4: Create your faux marble top
To get the faux marble look for a fraction of the price, try marble look contact paper! It is peel and stick and oh so easy to apply! Make sure your shelf is clean and free from dust, peel back a portion of the paper backing to reveal the adhesive, and slowly attach to your shelf. Smooth out any wrinkles while applying and wrap the entire shelf before attaching to the base. I found it easiest to cut the paper to size and then apply one sheet to the top and another to the bottom vs. trying to wrap it around and get clean edges. Because of this, my piece has a wooden edge along the top shelf. I chose to paint mine with a little copper paint but you could also do white so it blends in with the paper.
And that is it! This gorgeous West Elm side table dupe was finished in just a few hours and looks just as good as the original for a fraction of the price! Totally worth it!
