Tag: side table

Furniture

Console Table Magic

Jessica Smith

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted on the blog and I’m happy to share that my tomato tally has crossed the 100 tomato threshold! Yes, this weekend we hit a Tomato Tally of 102. I probably have a dozen more needing to get picked, too. Craziness.

Anyway, this isn’t actually a post about tomatoes. Shocker, I know.

Ever since we rearranged our living room to accommodate my slipper chairs, I’ve wanted to get a console table for our living room.

Slipper chairs

The room is starting to really come together. New chairs, new pillows… and now, new table!

Console before

I found this console table on Craigslist for $25 and an office building 4 minutes from my house. I emailed and was super pleased to hear that I was the first person to reach out and the table was mine if I was interested.

I left work in a hurry to make it to the office complex before they closed at 5, bargained them down to $20 and left with a new table!

The table was wobbly and a bit dated with the gray glass, so I took the glass out and tightened all of the bolts with a ratchet set. Then, I whisked myself off to Home Depot to buy some wood to replace the glass.

IMG_0434

I roped in this kind gentleman to help me cut the wood down to size since we don’t have a table saw (and 51″ is too long to cut even remotely straight with a circular saw). Twenty minutes later, I walked out with two new shelves and some scraps.

IMG_0435

I set up shop on our patio, sanding and staining the wood. I mixed a walnut brown with a light gray stain to lighten the brown color a lot. I ended up with a light brown with hints of gray in the knots of the wood. Two coats of stain, two coats of poly, one light sanding and voila!

Console After

Love love loveeee. It fits perfectly against the wall opposite our bay window where the couch used to sit.

Console In the room

It even matches the style of our coffee table (You can see the style better below when we used them as end tables).

End Table

I waited a day to let everything dry and cure completely before staging it.

Console2

I’m still working on that, but this is stuff I had all around the room just waiting for a home on a nice console table like this one.

Console3I just love having a spot to put out pictures and flowers 🙂

All in all, this project cost a little less than $70 — not too bad for a new console table, especially when it’s twin at Ballard goes for $350!

Next up, a mirror for right above the table, which is centered with our bay window. The mirror will bounce the natural light around the room and really anchor the table with the wall. Now I just gotta find one I like!

Hope you all had a great weekend! Between the console table (I did this whole project in one night after work last week), a BBQ and a river walk, my weekend was a blast.

RemRiv

Rem had a pretty good weekend, too.

Happy Monday!

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!