DIY furniture dupers are the true heroes of the home decor side of the internet. You no longer have to be rich to have a home full of ornate, stylish, or avant-garde decor. With a few affordable supplies and a little bit of crafting know-how, the ability to recreate your favorite high-end furnishings for a fraction of the cost sits in the palm of your hands- and it's these inventive internet DIYers who show us the way!
DIYer Tina Le Mac recently flexed her duping skills by whipping up an impressive (and significantly cheaper) recreation of a West Elm side table using a surprising base material. Sure, she could have just paid well over $100 to buy the real deal from West Elm, but why do that when she had a bunch of cardboard boxes lying around?
If you’re a cardboard box hoarder like me, try making furniture with it! Also, use a box cutter instead of scissors like I did (your hands will thank you later 🙈) This project was a labor of love and I learned so much from building this. It was my first time using plaster of Paris so I struggled a bit—it literally sets sooo fast, especially on a hot day. But now I’m hooked because I wanna make all the plaster furniture pieces! Materials - Cardboard - Plaster cloth rolls - Plaster of Paris (or joint compound) - Drywall mesh tape - Masking tape - Gorilla hot glue #diyfurniture #diyhack #diycardboard #cardboardcrafts #cardboardfurniture #plastertable #plaster #diyplaster
Can cardboard junk really become a convincing luxury furniture dupe ? I'll admit, I went into this one skeptical. The original product, the Gio Plaster Plant Stand from West Elm, was made from solid glass fiber reinforced concrete with rubber padding on the bottom - no mention of cardboard anything in there. But @tinalemac clearly had a vision here, and I was willing to trust it.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have been so skeptical. Once Tina got going, her approach made sense. The West Elm original was likely made in a mold, and Tina obviously didn't have one of those- but she could easily recreate the base shape from cardboard and go from there! Obviously, she wasn't just using a hollow cardboard box, either. She reinforced the bottom of her shape with a piece of wood, then packed the empty interior full of folded cardboard till it was solid and sturdy enough to hold the weight of the plaster (plus whatever objects would be placed on the finished table).
Next came the plaster, which was tricky. To cover and reinforce the table's curvy sections, Tina went in with plaster sheets. The rest got covered in plaster of Paris , but due to the substance's quick drying time, Tina found it pretty hard to work with. Nevertheless, she managed to make it work, and after sanding, painting, and top coating the finish project, she produced a pretty convincing dupe of the West Elm table!
Tina listed her materials in the caption but didn't say how much it all cost her. However, with the cardboard and wooden components being scrap materials she already had, the plaster of Paris, plaster sheets, and drywall mesh tape would have been her biggest expenses. Even if she bought all her other materials new, I would be very surprised if she spent over $50-60 total!
Tips for Working with Plaster
The only "awkward" bit of this process was all the trouble the plaster of Paris gave Tina (though as it was her first time using the material, some awkwardness was to be expected). It gave the finished project a rough-hewn texture, but that wasn't so bad, since the West Elm piece had that imperfect texture too (albeit without the glossy finish). Still, other DIYers gave Tina some tips on what she could try differently next time!
"You can do this with drywall compound . Same result and easier to work with," suggested @tran._.tran.
"Mixing plaster with spackle really helps make applying easier," added @jiaranai.studio.
Viewer @goodinmybook seconded the use of spackle, with an additional note: "Add spackle to the bottom coats to better seal for moisture (with paper interior) and then do plaster."
Tina already gave a really solid tutorial for this DIY dupe , but the tips her commenters added gave enough info for future DIYers following Tina's example to avoid the awkward pitfalls of working with plaster. The next time I have enough cardboard boxes saved up, I might just need to try this for myself. Cardboard furniture ain't child's play anymore!
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