Make Your Own "Stone" Decorative Column... With Pool Noodles!

I had this awkward small corner to fill in my new bedroom, and some of you suggested a decorative column. I loved the idea, and jokingly suggested to John we get one of these from Restoration Hardware:

It was a joke, of course, because those columns cost between $500 and $600 each. YeeeeahNO.

John took a good long look at that photo, though, and said, "I could make one of those for $50."

My response? "YOU'RE ON."

John's initial design involved routing a lot of tiny wooden trim pieces, but then I had a brainstorm - and convinced him to try using pool noodles.

You heard me, pool noodles.

I won't keep you in suspense; here's our finished column:

Can you spot the pool noodles? I bet you caaa-aan! ;)

Obviously we weren't trying to match the RH columns exactly; I decided to go for more of a clean-cut stone or plaster look instead of distressed wood. Stone is much easier to fake than wood, and besides, you see more stone columns anyway.

Other than a little scrap wood for the base & cap, this is all you need to make your own pool noodle column:

That's an 8-inch concrete form tube from the hardware store, which costs about $8. The noodles were 70 cents each (on clearance at a dollar store), and we ended up using six of them. Add in a quart of contact cement, some scrap wood, and paint that we already had, and our column ended up costing us more like $20 instead of $50. (Cha-CHING!) Even if you had to buy the wood and other supplies, though, you'd still be well under $50.

So let's get to it!

Start by cutting all of your noodles in half with a long utility blade:

Don't worry if it's not exact; just do the best you can.

Lay out one of your cut noodles on the tube, arranging it into a spiral curve. When you're happy with how it looks, have a helper draw a line beside it with a Sharpie. (This will be your guide line when it comes time to glue down the noodles.)

You could also lay the noodles out straight, though, if you don't like the spiral look.

Next, paint the cut edges of your noodles and the surface of your concrete tube with 2 coats of contact cement, allowing them to dry for each coat. (You should find contact cement at any hardware store for less than $10 a quart.)

This was my first time working with contact cement, and it. is. awesome. Once it dries it only sticks to itself, so you don't have to worry about snagging anything you don't want to - but once it sticks, it forms a permanent, ultra-strong bond.

Now the fun part: sticking your pool noodles onto your tube. Line up your first one to match your guideline, and press down firmly:

You'll note that we started about five inches down from the top of the tube: this gives you room to add a column cap later. (Plus the noodles aren't long enough to cover the whole tube if you curve them.)

Now just keep adding on noodles:

Your last noodle may be a bit of a squeeze, but jam it into place as best you can:

The pink noodle was the last one we placed. As you can see, it's a bit smaller from being squished into place, but not terribly noticeable.

Next you'll want to trim the edges of all your noodles. Here's the easiest method we found to mark a straight line all the way 'round:

I rotated the column while John held the Sharpie, supported by a shoebox.

Trim off the edges with a utility blade, and you'll have a nice noodle lip like this:

From here you have a couple of options for finishing off the ends of your column. John cut wooden rings to slide over each end like a cap:

Then he wrapped each ring with another pool noodle half, to give it a rounded edge:

We decided John's first cap was a little too short for our space, so he re-made it extra tall, like so:

He wrapped the sides in a thin aluminum, since that's what he had on hand, but you could also use wood veneer, flexible plastic sheeting, or even a heavy poster board to do the same thing:

Fitting the new cap:

See how much taller the new cap makes the column? Oh, and we've already sprayed on our first coat of primer here, too. Use a plastic spray-primer, or a good quality one like XIM.

Then all that was left was adding a round topper:

 You could also make it square; I just liked it better round on top.

To finish off your column, caulk in all the lines...

And follow up with a good coating of spray texture - the same stuff you fix wall patches with. (The pool noodles actually have a great stone texture already, so no need to spray those unless you're trying to match the texture to your caps, like we were.)

And finally, paint!

I brushed on a cream colored wall paint (left), and once that dried I brushed on thinned down brown craft paint, which I immediately wiped off again with a wet paper towel. That added just the right amount of aging to the texture, and really helps sell the stone/plaster look:

The end result is incredibly sturdy, and with the wood base & cap weighs a good 15 pounds, so don't worry about it tipping over too easily.

Funnily enough the hardest part of this entire project was finding something to put ON the column. After weeks of searching, though, we finally settled on this urn from the garden section of Old Time Pottery:

I purposely made the column more of a cream color to contrast with our gray walls.

A close-up, to show off all the textures a bit better:

Hope you guys liked our latest project, and that some of you will give it a try! As always, feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Now that the holidays are over I have lots of fun household crafts to dive into and share, so stay tuned for more soon!

 For my fellow Pinners.


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