DIY Candle Holders

Make a gorgeous vignette of candle holders for next-to-nothing by repurposing old furniture legs.

Remember the coffee table I was working on the other day? Well, project two of my repurposing/upcycling adventure was to take the legs from the table and make them into these beautiful, rustic candle holders.

Did I mention that these were completely free? Free, fun and repurposing are three of my favourite things!

I got my destruction on by dismantling the worn out coffee table.

I had actually planned on keeping the legs to potentially use them on a new coffee table build, but when I hammered them with my rubber mallet, they broke where the seams were glued. Without the top sections of the table legs, my coffee table would have been far too short for anything but a lap desk….

Hey… great idea! Maybe next time.

Instead, I cut the legs to varying heights on my mitre saw. “She’s got legs. She knows how to use them” (Little ZZTop love there) These are actually a pretty accurate representation of my legs – thick at the top, narrow at the bottom and with wrinkly knees in the middle.

I had some scrap MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) in the garage and I traced a quart-sized paint can to create circles for the candle dish section. I have seen images on Pinterest where DIY’ers have used terra-cotta dishes for this part, but I ~~was too lazy to drive to the store~~ wanted to use what I had.

These I cut out with a jig saw and attached to my DIY candle holder (aka. table legs) with wood glue and a 1 ½” wood screw drilled down through the centre.

I sanded the candle holders smooth, although not to bare wood and then coated with chalk paint.

I wanted to add some ‘rustic’ to my DIY candle holders by scuffing them enough to let a bit of the old wood stain show through. If you don’t want the same look, then I suggest using primer before painting. As you can see above, the tannins from the wood really penetrated the chalk paint causing it to yellow quite a bit.

I applied three thick coats of chalk paint, sanding with 320 grit in between coats.

I applied a wax coating to each candle holder and then buffed it to a nice shine.

This is the point where you can do a little extra sanding on edges to get the wood to show through. I don’t like my decor too rustic, so I just did a light scuff here and there.

They are SO PRETTY!

I think they’d look better still if my candles were real and melted down to different heights – but with a kitten in the house, battery-operated candles are all we use.

I have them on my bedroom dresser, but I can see these getting moved around everywhere; in front of the fireplace, as a centrepiece on the dining room table, a coffee table vignette, surrounded by leaves for Fall or pine and berries for winter.

DIY Candle Holders

(free) coffee or side table
sandpaper
chalk paint or other leftover paint
scrap wood
1 ½” wood screws
wood glue
pillar candles

I had all the supplies already, so these DIY candle holders came in at a whopping $0 and took almost no time to make. Talk about DIY decor on a limited budget!

I’m not usually a fan of chalk paint, but it does allow you to have varying textures (sand some areas smooth, some to let the wood show through, leave some with brush strokes) and once waxed, the coating has a light shine to it and is fairly durable.