Tag: end table

Furniture

Pedestal Table (again)

Jessica Smith

Last summer I turned a rickety old plant stand into a side table using a silver tray. Well, I’m here to tell you guys that while it turned out adorably, not the best choice if you don’t want to constantly remove tarnish from your furniture haha. Oh well, I had the best intentions.

{A Smith of All Trades} Metalic Pedestal Side Table

I was perusing the aisles of Home Depot and found a round piece of wood that would make the perfect table top — who knew Home Depot was so useful?! OK, OK, I did.

I purchased it with the intention of re-redoing the plant stand.

TAble Top

 

First, I sanded the table, which was mostly smooth, minus the edges.

I didn’t want to repaint the base of the table, so I opted for a fun color of stain. I used a mint green, water-based stain from Minwax. I pretreated the wood first, using Minwaxs wood conditioner. Then I applied two coats of stain.

I sealed the top with some poly and let it dry before attaching it to the table base.

Mint Green PEdestal Table

It’s different and I like it, but it doesn’t look so good next to my blue chair. Whoops.

TAble and chair

All in all, this table redo took me about an hour total, not including dry times. Not to bad for the second time around!

 

 

Furniture

Before & After: Run-Down End Table

Jessica Smith

My latest piece for A Slap of Paint was a doozy. It should have been an easy flip, but I botched it big time. Luckily I was able to fix my mistake.

I started with this end table that I picked up from Habitat Restore. I can’t tell you how much I love that place.

Navy Side Table_Before

 

To fix this piece up, I removed the table top and sanded the heck out of it.

Table Top

Then I stained it using a black Varathane stain. I coated the top in poly and set it aside.

I painted the bottom of the piece in navy chalk paint. I mixed the paint myself using Paint Minerals. It turns any flat paint into chalk paint. The best part — you can paint your pieces without sanding them down first. Awesome!!

Painting in PRogress

Two coats later and my piece was painted and beautiful. I wanted to do a layer of protective coating on the piece, and I should have used wax, but I didn’t. I coated the entire piece in polycrylic, effectively ruining the beautiful paint job. See, the polycrylic dried and bubbled and made the whole piece a hot mess.

Bummer.

Once everything was completely dry, I sanded the paint job so I could start fresh.

Thankfully, the second round of navy paint covered beautifully. I didn’t totally mess the whole thing up after all. Phew.

The second time around I waxed the painted portion of the end table down. Right choice.

Even though this was more work than I anticipated, it turned out beautifully.

Navy End Table

The knobs were also from restore for $1 a piece. Woo!

 

Thrift Store Finds

Thrift store finds: Ballard End Tables

Jessica Smith

If you follow me on Facebook you saw a couple of weeks ago that I got an AMAZING deal on two Ballard Design end tables at a local thrift store. I’m talking ah-may-zing.

I paid $9.99 per table which retail for $199.00! At least brand new ones do. These had a 2011 sticker on them, so they aren’t brand spanking new, but still fabulous.

Holy smokes was I excited when I realized (actually, my thrift store buddy showed me the Ballard sticker) what I had found.

The tables were in really good shape, minus some gum stuck to the bottom and 12 or so missing screws. After scrubbing the heck out of the tables and replacing all of the screws, I decided that I was definitely keeping these tables for myself and not doing anything (yet) to refinish or alter them.

End Table

They don’t match perfectly with the couch, and I’m really liking the different styles paired together.

End Table

I also love the shelf on the bottom. I’ve got our scrapbooks proudly displayed on one and all of my BHG magazines on the other.

End Tables

Truthfully, I am just grateful to have finally found tables for this room and at such a steal. I’ve been looking for some time and am really happy with these babies.

Also, don’t judge my lack of shades — it’s a work in progress 🙂 And I’ve been dying to get these lamps out of my craft room for more than a year now.

Now I need to tackle that blank wall above the couch. I can’t decide between a huge mirror to reflect the light from our bay window or a gallery wall of photos. What would you do?