First Refurbish

Before marrying my husband, my mother-in-law never had any other women around. Now that she has me, we have a great time doing girly things that she never got to do as the mother of two sons. Our most recent project was refurbishing a table that she's had sitting in her entryway. It was given to her years ago, complete with green paint spots. The trusty table that has spent years holding onto our keys, phones, fishing gear, and just about everything else, has finally received the pampering it deserves and will make a lovely addition to the rest of the updates they plan on making to their home, which they built themselves over 30 years ago...

Isn't it darling? It never ceases to amaze me how just a few items can completely transform a piece of furniture. Here's what we did:

We started by removing the dated hardware and sanding down the entire table, including the drawer...

Once that was finished and dusted off, we spray painted it with ivory paint...

When the paint was completely dry, we used sandpaper to distress the edges. Then, we used the same technique I used on the canvas in my post Decoupage Wall Art, watering down brown acrylic paint and brushing it on with a sponge from left to right and back again. On this project, it almost looks like the wood grain is showing through and it gives the table more of an aged look. You can buy glazes that will have the same effect, but this technique will save you some money. And we all love that right?

After the paint was dry, we sprayed on a few coats of lacquer to protect it from the wear we know it will continue to receive. Again, we gave it some time to dry and then attached the new hardware...

While it may sound like this was a very time consuming project, we were actually surprised at how quickly we were able to finish it. The paint doesn't take very long to dry and in some cases (like the lacquer) you don't have to spend any time waiting in between coats. It was a very fun project and I'm so pleased with how our first furniture refurbish came out!