My favorite impulse buy during a weekend in the Texas Hill Country was a used wine barrel. I bought it from Becker Vineyards in Fredericksburg for $100, hoisted it into the back of my SUV, and drove that mother home. I knew I wanted to convert it into a bistro table for the breakfast area, but I wasn’t sure what kind of a top it needed until after I got married and we consolidated homes. During the man-furniture purging, we tossed an Ikea table base but kept the round table top. It was the perfect size and shape, and the color was even a side-eyed-squint match to our kitchen cabinets. No refinishing needed! Well, not the table top anyway…
Converting the barrel into a table was easy, but it’s not as easy as just setting a round top on a barrel. It needed minor additions for stability, and aesthetic improvements so it wouldn’t look unfinished. I started with two 24″ pine rounds from Lowes and painted them black. The barrel would sit on one round to protect the floor from the metal ring at the base of the barrel. I added felt pads to the base round for additional protection. The other round would be the attachment between the barrel and the table top. I then stained the barrel wood with a dark chestnut polyurethane. After it was dry I covered the wood with newspaper and painters tape, leaving the metal rings exposed. I painted the metal rings with black textured Rustoleum spray paint.
Finally, we assembled the rounds, barrel, and attached the table top…voila! We LOVE this table and use it daily. And I love the bistro height as well. It’s a good lean-on height if guests want to stand around it, which we do often.
