It's doable... a garage sale coffee table redo
Monday, June 11, 2012 at 09:11PM On the way to one of the many weddings we attended this fall, we stumbled up this beauty at a barn sale. Yes my friends, I am from the Midwest where you sometimes see barn sales versus yard sales. I saw it as a diamond in the rough (while my sweet husband scoffed at me) and we bought it for a mere $8. Don't pass by a solid wood item just because it needs a little lovin!
Aren't the before and after amazing?
It's really quite simple what we did... although time consuming.
1) First, we decided we could take the table apart by removing a few screws. This wasn't the original plan but the table needed some new reinforcements and one thing led to another and we had it taken apart. It was old enough the glue had worn off so it was just screws holding it together.
2) Second, we used a 100 and 120 grit sandpaper to sand the life back into the table... the main goal here is to get all the old junk off, while not taking any gouges out of it as you do so. I highly recommend a dust mask and goggles for this part... especially if it is painted and not stained, you don't want to come into any contact with old lead paint.
3) If your table is rickety like ours was and this is new to you, take pictures of it to your local hardware store and they'll show you what brackets you can use to tighten her up!
4) We chose a white satin spray paint and a chocolate brown for accents. Make sure you are in a well ventilated area and have a lot of drop cloths down around your table (you will be moving your can at different angles and will inevitably spray off your drop cloth...sorry honey!) Read the can carefully and don't get too impatient with how thin the first layer of paint looks... trust me, I did and put it on too thick and then it ran. And I had to sand some more. It'll take a few coats, and putting the table on it's end or upside down. It's important not to rush this, you want each coat to be dry before grabbing it and moving it around.
5) Put it all back together! (For some reason the leg looks crooked in this picture... it's not, just so it doesn't drive you crazy wondering why we didn't fix that too!)
6) We then took it to a local glass cutting store and had 2 pieces made in a grey tint (this was by far the most expensive part coming in at $50).
Total cost:
table: $8
sand paper: free (we had it)
couple cans of spray paint: $20
custom cut glass inserts: $50
TOTAL: $78 Think that's expensive? Go price out a solid wood table and I'll see you back soon :)
Reader Comments (1)
Love it....beautiful!