We’re back! This past week has been an absolute nightmare, but we really appreciate all of the support you guys have given us, and we’re super glad you didn’t leave us for some other blog during our week of absence. Now as promised we have a TON of new projects to share with you guys that we’re pretty excited about.

In case you didn’t know.. Derek’s birthday is next week and as a firm supporter of celebrating the entire month of one’s birth, I went furniture scrounging to find a little something for Derek’s new house. I hit up all of my favorite thrift stores in search of a mid-century credenza with sliding doors, as well as a couple side tables for his living room. Not just any side tables, these puppies have to be less than 15″ in diameter as not to obstruct the traffic flow. So as I searched, I came across this little guy at Goodwill for $8.99.

It reminded me of the Alvar Aalto stools [you've probably sees at Apple] that retail for $260 a pop so I had to get it. The top was a little scratched so I told Derek that I would paint it whatever color he wanted, as an early birthday gift. After throwing out ideas for what to do, we decided that I really only needed to paint the top because the legs were in perfect condition. And then the unexpected happened. He actually said “now don’t freak out.. but I think that a white chevron pattern would look really cool”. Yep. I almost died. Luckily we already had a half pint of Valspar gloss white laytex so I was ready to roll.

 Here is everything I needed:

1. half pint of Valspar high gloss white latex paint
2. foam brush
3. 2″ bristle brush
4. 1″ painters tape
5. ruler [yes that's a scale because that's the only kind of ruler designers/architects have]
6. pencil
7. exact blade [not pictured]

To layout the chevron pattern I wanted, I first drew a 2″x2″ grid. 2″ because I wanted my stripes to be the width of the 1″ tape.

Then I just lined the tape up with the corners of the grid at right angles for the perfect zig-zag. I continued to line up the tape with each grid “corner” leaving a 1″ space between each stripe.

Then because we only wanted the pattern to be on the top of the table, I taped off the entire side of the table top in case any excess paint ran off the edge.

I used the foam brush to apply a couple thin coats of paint to sort of act as a primer before I really gobbed it on. This helps to get that coverage while creating a thin barrier so that the thicker paint applications won’t seep under the tape.

After two light coats with the foam brush, I switched to the bristle brush for thicker more even coats.

As you can see, Derek was there for moral support. After about 2 more thick coats we waited about 10 minutes and then started to peel off the tape, while the paint was still a little wet. You don’t want to wait for it to completely dry because you’ll risk peeling up the paint along with the tape. I slowly pulled up each piece of tape one by one using an xacto knife to score the edges making it much easier as the paint was drying really fast.

There were a couple spots where the paint seeped through but I was able to scrape it off with the knife or touch it up with a sharpie. Sneaky sneaky. Derek loved how it turned out, and I was really surprised at how easy it ended up being! This whole project took about 3 hours

TOTAL COST:
table – $9
paint – free
TOTAL – $9

If only all of our projects were this fast and inexpensive! Have any of you added a little pizazz to an otherwise boring piece of furniture? Tell us about it!

cfs