How to Make a Chic Butler’s Tray Table from Thrifty Finds
Creative & affordable ways to use TV tables and pretty serving trays to make chic butler’s tray tables to decorate a home.
TV tray tables, luggage racks, and trays of all shapes and sizes are abundant at flea markets and thrift stores if you can’t unearth any hidden away in your basement.
All can be transformed into a tray table for the side of a bed, sofa or chair in any room.
What Is a Butler’s Tray Table?
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Butler’s tables are both stylish and versatile pieces of accent furniture! The tray top comes off so you can use it as – a tray.
Whoever invented it – smart idea. The bottom part of the table can be folded up to store or to easily move from room to room.
Here is my butler’s tray table close up – it is very old Asian inspired design.
With a folding base and removable tray top – a butler’s table can be used in more ways than one. Tray tables keep a room looking organized as it keeps items organized that might otherwise look cluttered into décor.
It is a side table one minute, and simply a tray to carry something or to place on the bed with a book or a snack.
On this tray table, I placed a basket on the bottom section to hold rolled towels in my guest room.
The tray holds some basic necessities my guests may need – water, reading material, an alarm clock, tissues, and…
…chocolate in the way of Kisses.
How to Make a Butler’s Tray Table
If you don’t have a butler’s table and like the idea of having one, look no further than local yard sales and thrift stores.
I found these plastic TV tray tables and silver tray at my local thrift store to make my own chic butler’s tray table. They look pretty mundane, but with the magic of some spray paint.
An ordinary TV tray goes from cheap to chic when a wicker basket is placed on top.
If you have a wicker tray where items get wobbly because they are placed on the uneven surface of the wicker, try adding a pretty DIY Wicker tray Insert that you can easily make with cardboard, fabric and or decorative paper.
Don’t like baskets? How about creating a chic traditional look? Spray paint the TV table black and place a $4.00 thrift store silver tray on top.
Tres Chic!
Other Places to Use a Butler’s Table:
- Eating Alfresco? Place the stand next to the main dining table and bring out the food on the tray. This gives you extra table space.
- Use the tray alone to turn an ottoman into a table.
- Eat in front of the TV in style.
- Place by a sofa or chair – add a lamp and it makes the perfect side table.
- Set it up as a party bar.
A butler’s tray table is one of the most versatile pieces of furniture you will ever own.
Make it shabby, make it chic, make it rustic, make it simply – in your own style!
To see the other ways I transformed this guest room on a budget, don’t miss how to Update a Hand Me Down Dresser. Make a Bed Hanging to add focal point. Add No-Sew Drapery Panels and hang them on PVC Curtain Rod and Finials.