Bob's Bloggers
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$0 Side Table Makeover
By Our Lake Life on Jun 12, 2012
Remember the side table I found on the side of the road last week? I got it done over the weekend and worked completely with what I had on hand making this a $0 makeover. But let’s remember how it looked when I rescued it from the trash pile.
The table started out it’s lackluster life beat up and scratched sitting on the side of the road. I brought it upstairs and gave it a new home on our deck. I thought about what to do with it for for some time, elicited some reader ideas and even stared up at the spray paint section of Home Depot for at least 30 minutes pondering all the possibilities, nothing jumped out at me so I went home empty handed.
My impatience to get this project started got the better of me which forced me to take a look on the shelf of our shed and found an old unused can of Valsper spray paint in a beautiful pale yellow color that by happy accident coordinated with one of the stripes in our ombre pillows.
So I lugged the table downstairs and got down to business sanding it to a smooth finish, first with 100 grit sand paper to remove the finish then followed up with 250 grit sand paper to ensure everything was completely smooth. Note I forgot to attach the dust collector bag to the back of the orbital sander. Yes it took me a while to figure it out, I was COVERED in saw dust. I definitely should have taken a picture of the one, but alas you all will have to use your imaginations.
Then I wiped the whole thing down with a tack cloth and applied 2 even coats of a mixture of Minwax Red Mahogony and Colonial Maple stain with a soft cloth. Letting the stain soak in then rubbing off and reapplying according to the directions.
After the table sat out overnight to completely dry I taped off the table top with newspaper turned the whole thing over and grabbed a leftover can of spray primer in the shed and sprayed 2 thin and even coats of primer over the entire table base waiting in between coats the time indicated on the directions, followed up with a light sanding with 800 grit sand paper and wiped down with a tack cloth to ensure a super smooth top coat.
Then the whole process started all over again for the top coat, spraying multiple thin even coats until the entire table base was a nice buttery yellow color. Once dry I flipped the entire table over and added a numerous coats of satin polyurethane to the top of the table sanding between every few coats to get the smoothest finish possible.
Not only was this project completely quick and easy. It took about 2 hours over the course of 2 days.
This found table got a makeover using stuff I already had in about 2 hours. If you had to buy the paint the project would come in around less than $20 for the spray paint, stain and sealer.
Not too shabby for a $0 dollar makeover.