A Stump Side Table

Hey friends! I'm sharing a unique and easy project today...a Stump Side Table. I fell in love with these when I read The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith. If you've followed her blog for any amount of time, you may have seen some of her stumps. She has a few different blog posts about them here, here and here.

West Elm also sells these beauts for $249 each.

The cost for mine, you ask? ZERO DOLLARS!


A tree fell on my in-laws' property and my father in-law was chopping up all the wood. I told him what I was looking for and he graciously obliged. Here's what I started with:

If you wanted to go "au naturel" you could certainly leave it as is, but I wanted a painted, brighter look, so I started removing the bark with a chisel and hammer. I had some help (see...even 4 year old princesses can do this!).

Once the bark was removed, I sanded it down with some course sandpaper.

I dusted it off and started painting. I had help with that as well...DIYers in training :)

If you're going for a more natural look, use polyurethane instead of paint.

Finished project...

Here's what you'll need:

- tree stump
- chisel and hammer (if removing bark)
- sandpaper
- paint or polyurethane

This is a super simple project and only took a few hours.

Here's another stump idea from 17 Apart: