How I fixed my grooming table and made it bigger

I have 7 dogs. I’ll wait. I know, it’s a lot. I love each one and their personality. They are doodles and poodles (my personal favorites!). Their hair is always growing and has to be cut every 8 weeks. I can’t afford over $800 every two months in grooming fees so I learned to cut their hair. I’ve been cutting my dog’s hair for over 15 years. It started with my malti zhu (who recently passed). Unfortunately for him he is the one I had to learn on. But I loved cutting his hair! It’s so fun. I do not, however, claim to be good at it! I’m no groomer, that’s for sure.

Green Bean (see above with dad) is one of my tinier dogs and has special needs. So, I had her on the table and was giving her her second hair cut from me. She had a hair cut in her first year when my vets spayed her. They cut her hair while she was under. If you’ve never had a special needs dog whew it’s a lot. Especially trying to give her a cut. Then I cut her hair and she did okay on the grooming table the first time. The second time (a month ago) not so much. Now it probably takes me an hour on the table to get their hair cut. Even the biggest dogs don’t take longer than 1 hour 15 minutes. I was almost finished when Green Bean jumped off the table with her collar still attached to the arm which caused the edge of the table to roll up. It was a mess. She wasn’t hurt and I now have more arms in place to prevent this from happening next time. But because she was almost done, I had taken most of the safety stuff off as I was just finishing up in certain areas. Anyway, she was fine and just standing there looking at me like can you unhook me now. So I definitely did. But because of our special girl Green Bean I had to completely redo my grooming table. I know I’m not the only one this has happened too so I decided to share it with you how we put it back together. You know I’m not one to replace and get a brand new table. I, being more Earth minded, put my head together with my husband (which is code for he figured it out on his own) and we came up with a way to still use this broken table. Here’s how we made our grooming table bigger and fixed it after my dog broke it!

Here’s my before photo of my table. Well actually it’s broke here but it doesn’t look it. I’ll show you how it’s broke below.

We went looking to see what wood we had that we could use to replace the cheap plywood table top. We had a really good thick piece. So, we sanded it down and then grabbed some of our leftover paint and painted the top and about 1-2 inches in on the underside of the board so if we moved it it didn’t put splinters in our hands. See photos below!

Then we took the legs off the older table top and attached them to the newer table top. and it turned out just fine. See below!

We attached a nonslip matt that we already owned on top so that the dogs don’t move around and it worked great. I was so excited. And here’s my new set up!

I bought everything I use on this table from marketplace. Even one of the arms. The only new things I tend to buy for my grooming table are my razors, blades, scissors, ear meds, etc. Everything else I get used. It’s been so great. If you’ve ever thought about grooming your dogs yourself there are plenty of youtube videos to teach you how! If you like what you’ve read please subscribe to my newsletter in the middle of this page, or youtube, facebook, bluesky, threads or instagram!

Before you go check out my other posts on upcycling, diy, and other fun things I think you may like.

• How to sand and paint furniture
• Reclaimed and repurposed trash into a planting table
• How to repurpose sweaters into hats and leg warmers
• DIY Upcycled Vase
• Desk redo from boy desk to girl desk!