Okay, we're on a roll. The dates are out of whack, but ignore that.
I finished this project about a week ago, but it probably started close to the beginning of October. Also, there are a ton of photos so I split it up into two posts. Here's the first of two.
So although I've pinned this, I originally found it at
Young House Love, a home renovation and DIY blog of a family that lives off of blogging about redoing their house. Dreamy, right?! I think we're all a bit jealous. Anyway, in their archives, I found this guest post where Kara from
Kara Paslay Designs gave a tutorial on making your own ottoman-bench-footstool-thing. I was intrigued! Since we got our new couch, we were in need of something footstool-coffee table-ottoman-like, and we didn't want to get something large and expensive. So why not make our own?
Kara was able to use some awesome leftover wood from her home re-do, but unfortunately I haven't ripped out any walls with out-of-date-framing (actually I haven't ripped out any walls lately), so I thought I might just start with an existing coffee table instead. So Billy and I spent a Saturday garage-sale-hunting and thrift-store-shopping, and finally came up with this:
We found it at Crow, a small thrift shop in St. Johns. At first, we wandered around the small place without finding anything. But the nice shop owner asked us if she could help, and I described my idea.
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| (The dog came free.) |
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So she scurried into the back and pulled this out!
It was just the shape I was looking for. Long and skinny, perfect for in front of the sectional. The top was some kind of laquer and the sides and legs were a little beat up - some scuffs and they looked like they had been partially primed and then abandoned. But the pieces were real wood and we were planning on re-doing it anyway. So we took it home for a sweet $25!
The legs come off in a jiffy.
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| My boys posing on the table. Bentley looks hilariously creepy. |
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| Model dog? |
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| I had trouble getting him out. He liked it. |
So the first step was sanding it down to prep it for a couple nice coats of spraypaint.
I also pulled out some random staples on one end. Maybe somebody already had my idea?
Plasco Inc. is the manufacturer. Didn't find them in Google, who knows all, so they must not exist anymore.
This was the most severe damage, but not really that bad. I filled it with putty, smoothed it out, and let it dry before painting.
Billy helped me sand it down. Well he actually re-sanded everything after I had first sanded it all. I guess I missed some spots? We started with some 100-grit paper, and finished off with some finer 250-grit. Not sure if we needed both, but it worked well.
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| Bentley=Super Helpful (Not) |
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Above were my two choices of spraypaint - gloss espresso brown and hammered brown. The Rust-Oleum stuff works great -the nozzles were really easy to use. I decided to go with the hammered brown -a little lighter and more metallic-y.
I laid my table out on some cardboard in the backyard to be painted.
I stood the legs on their tops, so that I could spray on all four sides.
I also stuck Q-tips in the screw holes, so they didn't get all gunked up with paint.
And voila - my way-attractive fume-proof getup. And surprise! It was sunny in Portland! So I donned the sunglasses. This awesome photo is my reflection in the sliding glass door. Nice, right?
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| Spraypaint, Coat #1 |
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| Spraypaint, Coat #2 |
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| Spraypaint, Coat #3 |
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| Spraypaint, Coat #4 |
After reading many posts by Sherry the Spraypaint Queen, from the above-mentioned blog Young House Love, I learned that proper technique includes constantly moving your arm while spraying 8-12" away from the surface. And lightly does it!
I probably ended up doing about 6-8 very thin coats on all surfaces.
Once I let the pieces dry (for 48 hours, outside and in the garage), I brought them inside but noticed that the ridges in the legs didn't perfectly get sprayed. Dang.
No biggie, really. I just sprayed a little paint in a paper cup, pulled out a craft foam brush, and dabbed it onto the ridges.
Ahh, much better.
Then I let that dry, of course.
What's next? The good part! Upholstery!!
But that will have to wait until the next post...
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