I had an empty foyer and didn’t have the $200+ budget to buy a console table to fill it. However, I did have Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Amazon.com, Home Depot, and a budget of $60 to DIY the wood spool console table I wanted.

Materials

• Tile 12×12
• Mosaic Tile 12×12 (we used 4 of this specific tile)
• Wood Spools x2
• Grout (choose the color that best suits the tile you choose)
• Loctite Power Grab Construction Adhesive x2 (the exact one I used)
• Polyurethane Flexible Moulding 6ft x2
• Finishing Nails

Tools

• Caulk Gun
• Grout Trowel
• Hammer
• Bucket
• Sponge
• Circular saw (or some type of electric saw to make cutting the spools easy)
• Measuring Tape

Getting Started

Wood spools are incredibly difficult to find for free, we were pretty lucky because someone listed six as corner grabs on Facebook Marketplace. I had been looking for well over two weeks at this point, so I sent my husband on a mission to grab all 6 of them, and he went begrudgingly.

Most people who post them on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist do so with a cost, usually no more than $25, and you’ll need two, so keep that in mind when working your budget out if you’re unable to find them free in your area.

When you first get your spools you’ll have to measure how far you want your future console table to stick out from the wall and mark it. We have wire spools so the middle is thick cardboard, whereas cable spools will have a very hard middle, making it incredibly difficult and time-consuming to cut the top of the spool.

If your foyer or wherever you decide to place them has room for a full wooden spool, then don’t worry about cutting it. Our foyer didn’t have much space, so I cut about 4 inches off each spool top, ensuring to maintain its strength, as tile and grout are incredibly heavy.

For the tile, we chose about 15 of the $0.49-$0.99 12×12 tiles and some of the $0.89 white glossy tile to make the muted tones stand out a little more. I chose completely random colors and textures, however, make sure they are all the same depth. I didn’t do that at first and had to make another trip to Home Depot.

Once you have all the tile you want for your DIY console table, get to smashing the tile into medium/small jagged pieces with a hammer.

DISCLAIMER

Please wear gloves during this process. The lack of adult in me didn’t use common sense and my hands came out looking like I was attacked by Edward Scissorhands. Tile broken is sharp. Wear gloves. Oh and eye protection as well. There were times where I felt like I was in a Die Hard movie the way I had to dodge the tile flying at my eyes.

Placing the Tile & Starting Your Mosaic

Survived the onslaught of tile? Good! Now it’s time to start placing the tile down directly on the wooden spools in the pattern you want before using any adhesive. I chose to place the tile pieces randomly throughout the top of the spool. I was going for a rustic/garden walkway appearance to contrast with our mahogany-colored floors.

Once you have your tile pieces placed in the pattern or design you’re wanting to achieve, now comes the fun part, gluing them all down one by one. Because I’m using stone tile on wood, a construction adhesive worked best, as they’re multi-purpose.

So I used Loctite Power Grab, as it had the tile in place within a few minutes and they were unmovable within six hours, and fully cured in 24 hours. You only need a little bit per tile, so one tube will complete about 95% of your project, depending on how many tiles you add to each shelf.

DISCLAIMER

Yes, you’re still going to want gloves on. I hadn’t learned my lesson by this point. However, by the completion of the second shelf, I had gloves on.

I started placing tile down on the second shelf, marking where the mosaic tile (black penny round) and stone tile met, so as to ensure I didn’t go over those lines. I then began gluing the mosaic tile to the middle of the wood spool. This part had to be held for a few minutes so the entire 12×12 piece didn’t slide down or fold over before the Loctite could grab and adhere it to the cardboard. I continued until the entire middle spool was covered in the mosaic.

Repeat until every tile has adhered to the shelves and the mosaic covers the middle. Once the tile has fully cured, 24 hours, now you’re ready to grout the entire thing.

I have a garage, but by the time I was ready to grout, the DIY wood spool console table was so heavy I had to ask my disgruntled husband to pick it up and move it out into the garage.

If you don’t have a garage, shed, or protected area outside and start this process inside, ensure you lay down and hang plastic sheeting to protect your flooring and walls.

Let’s Grout

For this part, we used a 7lb bag of sanded polyblend grout. Our local Home Depot didn’t carry anything that wasn’t premade (super expensive by the way) under 10lbs, so I ordered from Amazon.com.

When mixing your chosen grout, follow the instructions on the bag or container.

When you’re grouting make sure you get the grout good in between the tiles. Don’t be afraid to use your fingers/hands in some areas. I found it easier than trying to use the trowel.

Grout each shelf and middle separately with at least three hours in between the next grout application. The reason for this is so the grout doesn’t dry faster than you can wipe off, and when you go to apply the grout to the next shelf, the grout prior is somewhat dry so wiping the new grout off won’t cause issues for the shelf/mosaic prior.

I chose to attach the polyurethane molding using finishing nails during the grouting process to ensure the grout was embedded everywhere, ensuring proper sealing. Now there’s a catch to this.

Once we wiped all the excess grout of our DIY wood spool console table, it was left in the garage to fully cure. Approximately 24 hours in total.

The molding we chose was porous, so I had to do some white paint touch up to remove the grout discoloration. That just so happened to have occurred as a result of wiping the grout off the edges.

It wasn’t horrible but it did require a little bit of extra work I wasn’t prepared for after the grout had cured.

And there you have it. My DIY wood spool console table fits beautifully in the corner of my foyer at a fraction of the cost. It’s also kid-proof. I wasn’t sure if I mentioned that, but my toddler hasn’t been able to knock it over yet.