Hello My Pretties

Alrighty peeps, time for another coffee table re-do! Am I the only one who is obssessed with coffee and side tables? I won't tell you how many I have stacked in my garage, lest you think I'm a loon.

I am a fickle creature and, despite the fact that I just bought wood side tables for my living room last year, I have already decided that they were the wrong choice and it's time for a change. Our main floor living room is a space that rarely gets used, but that doesn't mean it can't look pretty. It's right next to the dining room, which is a sort of formal space, so I want the living room to have the same formal vibe. I recently sold my Urban Barn velvet sofa and replaced it with a smaller 3 seater sofa in a cream colour. It was definitely the right decison. But the room was still far too casual! 

I swore that I would never again own glass topped tables - between kitties, visits from kidlets, and husbands, they are never clean - but I really like the look so I decided that it was time to suck it up and stock up on Windex!

I just swoon over a particular style of table, something similar to what can be seen in these rooms...glass top gold-ish base.

 

I have found some new tables similar, but I can't justify the cost. And going vintage was out of the question. This pair of vintage tables was over $1200!

I picked up this set of tables for $30 off a local online classified site. The size and shape were great, but the finish was pretty horrible. An aged brassy, bronzey eyesore. Someone please tell me why this finish is on so many pieces of furniture?!  I am not totally anti-brass, I am just anti-ugly-brass.

I cleaned and lightly sanded the table, gave it a coat of primer, and two coats of a metallic brass spray paint by General Paint (no colour number or fancy name - huh). I have never used this product before and was a tad nervous about how it would turn out, but I shouldn't have been. It went on easily and dried perfectly to a nice brushed metallic finish.

I decided to get rid of the cane and wood on the bottom of the table, it felt too heavy for the look I wanted. I initially wanted to replace the cane with a piece of glass, but Mr. Mel said he preferred them without a bottom shelf. Okily dokily. I suppose these are done, then.

I popped the glass top back in and have myself a pair of glitzy new end tables!

Cost breakdown for this project:
Tables = $30
Paint and Primer = $12
Total Cost = $42

New Life for Country Cute Table and Chairs

My parents have had this dining set since the early 80's! For those too young to recall, that was before iPods, DVD's, and uhm, yeh, you could buy a bag of chips for 50 cents! ha ha I grew up at this table. It's in tons of photos from my childhood, each nick and scratch has a story.

It's still very sturdy, and my mom still loves the style of it. But she's so over the finish!

Now that the main floor laminate is in, we decided to breath new life into this set. Dad gave me carte blanche so I decided to have a little fun with it. Mom is a big fan of these spaces from Sarah Richardson so I figured I'd stick with the same colours and embrace the country charm of the set.

I did the table first. It's not rocket science: clean, strip and then sand, sand, sand....and sand some more! I primed and gave a coat of fresh paint on the legs and apron with Krylon Satin White. I stained the top with Minwax Red Chestnut, topped with three coats of Varethane to protect it.

The table is my favourite part of this project. It just turned out so darn cute, I wanted an excuse to keep it for myself!

 

Now for the chairs...oh the chairs. Many a curse word left my lips while working on them. I sanded them down (man those spindles are a pain in the butt, thank goodness for my Dremel!), and cleaned them with TSP (make sure you wear rubber gloves with this product). I primed and then sprayed these with Rustoleum Aqua.

Here's where things went downhill in a hurry. Thankfully, I only tried this method one one chair, so fixing it didn't take as long as it could have if I had gone gung ho on all four. I scuffed the chair up with 100 grit sandpaper and then rubbed a light coat of stain over the entire chair. Epic. Fail. Monstrously epic! Back to the drawing board.

Once I had all four chairs painted (again) I mixed up a light grey glaze to make the colour a little less....bright. I did four parts glaze to one part grey paint. I used a rag to wipe it all over the chairs and left just enough behind to have them look a bit aged. A coat of Varethane to protect them and they are done...finally.

Here's the finished set. They were both really surprised to see it, and mom just loved it!

I am now hunting for rug for this area...wish me luck!

Linking up:

Steamer Trunk Ottoman

Mr. Mel is a sucker for anything nostalgic or historical. Any object that looks like it has a story to tell is right up his alley. For several years, he has talked about wanting a steamer trunk/case. We've seen a few we liked but, for one reason or another, they weren't right.

Recently I took a friend with me on one of my regular "treasure hunts" to some local antique and second hand stores and we found this:

We both loved it and, at $55, the price was right. I encouraged my friend to ditch her leather ottoman in favour of this trunk. Her response was less than enthousiatic. She threw at me a bunch of practical reasons why she didn't want to get rid of her current piece: that the trunk wasn't tall enough, that she didn't know how to make it work...that it smelled like mothballs. People, my friend lives in a charming character home in a beautiful area of the city with mature trees and historical neighbourhoods...this piece would have been perfect for her! Oh well, ya snooze, ya loose!

I brought this home, cleaned it up (which was no easy task, I assure you), vacuumed it out and Kilz'd and painted the inside to rid it of the eau de mothball.

I needed to make this piece a bit taller and easier to maneuver so I decided to add casters. I got those awesome walnut casters from CoolCasters.com. Doneski!

 

 

 

 

 

Cost breakdown for this project:
$55 for the trunk
$0 for Kilz
$0 for paint
$88 for casters

Total cost $143