How to Make a Believable Faux Stone Table Top

Honestly, the two small coffee tables that I created following this process will fool ANYONE who hasn’t touched them. I recently moved, and one mover groaned when he saw the “granite” coffee tables, followed by a sense of wonderment when he tried to lift the “stone” and felt the texture of the piece.

I made these two coffee table tops back around 1998, and despite the red wine that spilled and sat there over night, cheesy popcorn, greasy and hot pizza boxes, booted feet on the table top, etc.--they look as good today as the day I made them. I used Formula 409 to remove the wine stains, and a mildly scrubby 3M sponge to remove all kinds of other nastiness. And they came perfectly clean, time after time.

You’re dying to know the secret, I can tell.

Well, the bottom line was about $35 in materials (some of which I still have left over) and an hour of patience to complete each table top. I already had two sets of two “Grecian”-like pottery plinths (short pillars) that I wanted to use as bases. I originally wanted to use glass tops, but that wasn’t practical at the time, so off I went to the lumberyard and got two 4’ X 6’ X 1.5” thick boards–just random, rough particle board, the cheapest board that they had in the size I was looking for. After locating the boards, off I went to the wallpaper store where I poured over samples of stone-like “scrub-able” vinyl pre-pasted wallpaper. I also located a very sharp knife in my toolbox at home (X-Acto knives would be good, as would box cutters with a fresh blade).

Now, all ingredients in hand, I’ll go through this step by step so you don’t get lost in paragraphs of text

1. Set one board on top of two bases, making sure that the bases are plenty far away from the edges of the board. (5-gallon buckets would work, too, if you haven’t decided on the base yet.) This is so that you have room to wrap the wallpaper from the top to the bottom/back side.

2. Read all directions on the wallpaper, if it is pre-pasted, or else the wallpaper paste itself. Be sure to follow all safety precautions and ensure that anyone else in the area is, also. (Safety glasses, mask, whatever.) Since you don’t want pet fur in the works, it’s best to ensure that this project is done in a vacuumed, closed-off area from furry pets.

3. Did you read ALL of the directions on the packaging and this whole procedure, start to finish? :-) There won’t be time later if you’ve got wet wallpaper and a question.

1. Cut the wallpaper roughly to the size of the board plus 4-6 inches on all sides (to allow the wallpaper to be wrapped over to the back of the board, covering the sides). This may require two pieces of wallpaper, and you will need to decide if you want to match the pattern at the seam or if it is busy enough that no one will notice. If you want to match patterns, I recommend laying them out, dry, matching the patterns on top of the board, and marking using a crayon or china marker (oil pencil) several places to help with alignment once the paper is all wet and ready to be applied.

1. Following the wallpaper’s directions carefully, wet the wallpaper if it’s pre-pasted or apply the paste as directed.
2. Many varieties of wall paper require you to “book” the paper for a certain period of time. If yours does, then put the sticky sides together and wait for the specified amount of time.
3. When it is time, put the first piece of wallpaper on the board, leaving 4-6 inches sticking out on all sides. Start at the middle of the board and carefully press the paper down and outward to remove wrinkles and bubbles. If a second piece of wallpaper is needed, follow the same procedure. Now you should have a board with applied wallpaper whose edges are sticking out wildly from each side.
4. To tame the edges, go slowly and carefully, making sure that you don’t pull apart a center seam if your piece has one: start from the center of the board’s edge again, making sure to firmly fold the wallpaper over the edge and brush out any wrinkles or bubbles as you go. Stop when you are within about 4-6 inches of each corner on each side.
5. Now, do the same thing with the extra material on the bottom. Yes, apply the excess to the bottom of the board, as much of it as you’ve got, staying away from the corners for now.

1. Finish the corners the way you would when wrapping a present: inch the sticky wallpaper closer and closer to each vertical side of the corner.
2. The closer you get to a perfect meeting at the corners, the more wallpaper you can cut away. Continue folding down and under, down and under, cutting away any material that is hampering your efforts at achieving a smart corner for all four corners.

3. Now that you’re done with the hard part, it’s time to remove any alignment marks you made (usually gentle scrubbing with a dry paper towel will work). It’s also time to check for any wrinkles or air bubbles and gently press them out before the glue dries. And, of course, use a damp sponge to remove any glue residue from the surface of your table.

4. Now, leave the project sit until tomorrow. (I hate waiting, too.)

1. This step is optional, but recommended (especially now that I know how rugged these things are): flip the board over and wallpaper the remaining back side, too. The backside will NOT look as good as the front side, but it will help to conceal the board from the casual wandering eye.
2. Cut the random bits of wallpaper that you wrapped around from the front into a neat edge (not AT the edge of the board, just even things up a bit).
3. Now, tidy up the bottom side of the board by cutting a piece of wallpaper big enough to cover the area that has no wallpaper on it. You may need a second sheet, depending on the size of your board, but you already know how to piece together two sheets of wallpaper seamlessly. NOTE: For best results and to avoid getting paste on the remainder of the back/bottom, which is already finished, cut the fill-in pieces of wallpaper to size before you attach them. Simply flip the board over, dry-fit the wallpaper, then follow the directions above to complete the project: a fully wallpapered table top or shelf that is “scrub-able” and washable.

If you find that you have air bubbles that just can’t be brushed out of the table-top, be sure to use the smallest needle you can find to poke a tiny hole in the middle of the bubble and let the air out. Then, gently try to flatten the wallpaper toward the pinhole. All the usual wallpapering tricks should work with this project, so if you have a book or magazine on hand with wallpapering tricks, I recommend using it.

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These tabletops are extremely modular, and I originally stacked them to house A/V--my own home theatre system center (2 bases, 1 tabletop and CD/DVD player, 2 bases directly on top of the others to support the weight, 1 tabletop and TV--the heavy old-fashioned CRT kind!). Usually, however, I leave them as separate, small coffee tables to create little conversation areas.

I’ve also used this method to get a few more months of life out of a large, fold-up conference room table that was badly marred and heavily grooved. This project was much less successful, but it served its purpose. I think the difference was that I didn’t “book” the pieces for a long enough period of time before applying them to the table.

I think my next project using this method will be to create narrow “white marble” shelves to get some extra storage space in my kitchen.