Old Tables, New Look

Remember these guys?

They were given to us by a friend, and I knew I wanted to incorporate them into the living room in some way. I did a preliminary setup of the furniture after I finished painting the room gray, and they ended up behind the sofa.

They're actually the perfect height and length for a good console table. However, the wood finish they were sportin' really wasn't doing it for me and I knew they had to be changed up. I decided to try giving them a distressed finish (but mainly keeping them white to tie in the newly painted bookcases.)

So, into the family room they went for a good sanding...

...followed by a coat of Kilz Primer.

For the base color, or the color I hoped would eventually show through my purposefully-inflicted distress marks, I chose a blue color that I had left over from a brief project in the laundry room when we first moved in.

I was actually really liking the blue color, but I didn't think it would look as good in the finished room when all was said and done. But I did give some serious thought to just leaving them as they were.

Instead, I waited for them to dry and then I gave them a thin coat of white paint that I already had on hand from the staircase project.

They look pretty much exactly as they did when they were primed, but you can see in the second picture that the white paint is very thin, and you can see a little of the blue showing through.

Once the white paint was dry, I moved the tables into the garage and started sanding. The key is to sand very lightly, so you only take off the top coat. I just wanted the blue to show though in places where tables would naturally get dinged, and I had to be careful not to sand hard enough to take all the paint off and expose the wood.

After I felt like I had enough spots of blue showing through (and was scared that any more sanding would take all three layers of paint off), I gave them a quick coat of Valspar Clear Gloss and moved them back inside.

You can see some of the distress marks if you look closely, but all in all, it's not quite where I wanted it to be. I'm hoping that over time the actual use of the tables will continue to chip away at the white paint and reveal the blue, but if not, I can live with them being white.

And yes...for those of you that were paying attention...that is, in fact, my new wingback chair in the background. Another gift from my furniture-downsizing-friend from work. Win!

So the updated to-do list looks a little something like this:

Paint the walls
Paint the bookcases white
Work out some sort of coffee table solution
Figure out a solution for the trunk (and yes, I've already tried it as a coffee table. Too tall.)
Do something with the wooden tablesGet some blue curtains
Get some fun lamps
Get a wingback chairMake newly acquired wingback chair white
Accessorize
Figure out a solution/home for Rocker #1
Figure out a solution/home for Rocker #2

One step at a time!