I moved out on my own early last year, and had ZERO money to buy new furniture. So, logically, I decided I would hunt for some good thrift store finds, and paint it myself.
My first project happened when I stumbled upon this gem at a local thrift store for only $5.00! (I paid cash. And it came with the matching octagonal piece of glass.)
The table had some scratches and dents that I sanded down to create a level surface, and this is the closest to a 'before' photo that I've got!
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| My parents were kind enough to let me turn their back porch into a craft studio. Thanks mom and dad. ☺ |
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I found this primer via a Pinterest blog on how to refinish furniture and it really is pretty awesome! It took a couple of hours for the first coat to dry. I covered it again with the second coat, just to be sure that everything was coated evenly.
Be careful with this primer, because it's oil-based. That means it doesn't. come. off! Of your skin, or your hair, or your furniture- which is a good thing.
After I had it primed I went over it with a fine grained sandpaper because I noticed that some of the primer have a little texture on the surface of the table that I didn't want on my finished product.
Then came the hard part, I remembered from my high school art class to make a grid. I knew I wanted my Chevron Lions about 4 inches thick, so I made 4 inch squares.
After I had the grid drawn out, I erased the extra lines so that only the Chevron remained.
For the painting, I didn't use painters tape because I haven't had good luck with that in the past. It always seems to leak underneath the tape. Instead I just used a large palette knife and painted it by hand for precision.
I chose a very pale creamy yellow, and a grayish blue for the Chevron colors to stay neutral with my color scheme. Here it is after I started with the yellow:
After the yellow coat came the gray, if there was any overlap of colors or I accidentally colored outside the lines, this was an easy fix. Be sure that every coat is dry before starting the next one!
After the yellow coat came the gray, if there was any overlap of colors or I accidentally colored outside the lines, this was an easy fix. Be sure that every coat is dry before starting the next one!
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| And then the finished product! |
I probably spent somewhere between 10 and 12 hours on my parents back porch for this project. Don't choose a months like July to paint furniture outdoors...
I did finish with a polyurethane seal which was a little pricey but I used only about a quarter of the cam so that price even without when you consider that you can use it on other projects in the future.
I was really pleased with the way this project turned out and it was sort of a starting point for my new upcycling hobby.
Cost breakdown for this table:
$5.00 for table and glass top
$ 22.18 Paint
$23.19 Polyeurythane
The Primer was about $17 for a full gallon
$67.37 !
In the end, I had to spend a little extra for all the paint & supplies, but you can't beat a five dollar find!
