Turquoise Coffee Table Transformation

10:41 PM coffee table , furniture , paint , projects , redo 1 Comments

It's kind of embarrassing to admit that we've lived in this house for over three years, and we didn't have a coffee table.

Recently, I've learned to appreciate biding my time and feel the thrill the hunt of a good piece.

I'm a part of a few local buy/sell/trade FaceBook groups. I've had pretty good luck buying things in these groups. And by "pretty good luck" I mean I meant a lady in the Wal-Mart parking lot one time, and bought an awesome chandelier from her for $10.

I'd been searching for a coffee table I could update (read: paint), and I spent weeks on my local buy/sell/trade groups. I needed to be wood, because quite frankly, I'm sick of particle board, and I wanted to be able to paint over it. I also wanted to only pay $20 for it. Goals, amiright? Finally, I found it. I could tell it was solid wood, and the listing said $25. I asked if they would take $20, and it was a done deal.

There's a frightening story of how we actually picked up the coffee table, but that's another post for a different day. ;) The important thing is I have a coffee table. And we escaped with our lives.

Houston, we have a coffee table.

The table wasn't terrible as it was, but it smelled oh so terribly of cigarettes. My car smelled like I chained smoke since birth for over a week! I tried washing it with blue dawn (my cure all), and it helped some, but there was just no way around it. It had to be painted.

Fun fact: Micah made me pick a paint color in 30 minutes. Somehow, I didn't cave under the pressure.

I went with turquoise. There wasn't a lot of thought out into this color decision (read previous fun fact), and I didn't even consult my friends or FaceBook. It just felt right.

Neat

While Micah shopped around, I stumbled across this furniture paint from Valspar. If you didn't know, Valspar is my go to for paint. I usually purchase the high end interior stuff, but my interest was peaked with this. First, it was paint for furniture. Second, it was a smaller can. I didn't know if the future would require more turquoise paint, and I hate to have extra paint in huge cans lounging around doing nothing. Third, the price of this small can was cheaper than my usual stuff. I ran it by Micah, and he thought I should go for it. I had never used anything like this, so I wanted to test it out, and I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

Cleanish

Here's the table after I scrubbed it down.

Here goes nothing

And here's the table after one coat. I could tell the paint was immediately helping the terrible odor. The paint boasted it was supposed to be stroke-free, and as it dried, I could tell I made the right choice.

First coat

While the detail makes this coffee table so nice, it was a pain to paint all sides of this. I wanted to make sure I got paint onto every inch of surface, and I piled some into the cracks to make sure we really masked that smoke smell.


After a few hours (per can instructions), I added another coat, and touched up some of my drips. I let it dry completely overnight.

Ta-da!

Boom. Isn't it gorgeous? All in all, I say it was worth the the $20 near death experience for this table. For people who eat at their couch every night, the table has held up wonderfully.