Chevron Dining Table: My five dollar find

For a first blog post, this was a successful project!

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!



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!

 

 

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!

 

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