My Journey as a DI-TRY-ER: The Mid-Mod End Table

This is yet another piece I found on Facebook. It had been posted in my furniture group for quite a while. I'd scroll by it and glance at it every now and then, but I didn't think too much of it. Then, one fateful night (haha), I was browsing Pinterest and found a really cool updated mid-mod table that was kinda similar to the one for sale. I was instantly inspired! I knew I could bring this thing back to life. All it needed was some love <3. After some haggling, I was able to get this baby for only $25 buckaroos!

The Inspiration.

The plan:
Paint the outside white, stain the drawer, and paint the inside a color. I also decided to stain the legs to match the drawer. I really loved the piece I found on Pinterest so I figured I'd use it as a guide. No need to reinvent the wheel. Once I got the table home and really started looking over it, I noticed some areas that needed a little extra love. The feet and drawer pull either needed to be replaced or painted somehow. Also, I needed to decide whether I wanted them in silver or gold. That decision could wait. There had also been doors on the front at some point, but I'm guessing they were long gone. The hinges and latch remained though, so those needed to be removed. Easy peasy.

First coat of primer done!

The first thing that needed to be done was sanding. I used an 80 grit sandpaper (I couldn't find my other ones and was too lazy to really look) to rough up the surface and help remove some of the gloss. Proper adhesion is very important when painting furniture. I'm a huge fan of Kilz primer (I seriously use this stuff on everything) and I did about two coats of that to ensure the paint would adhere. That part only took a few hours (that includes drying time).

Once the primer was dry, I added the first coat of paint to the inside. I got very lucky with the paint. My sister bought a house and is currently painting every room. She picked up a bunch of color samples, and gave me the ones she didn't use. Lucky for me, I really liked the colors. For the interior, I chose Behr Fresh Guacamole. Its a pretty green that's fresh, yet feels retro at the same time. The color was perfect for this project! The table needed two coats of the color. Really, it looked pretty good after one coat, but for safety, I added a second. Side note: paint dries really fast when its a million degrees outside! That's September in Alabama for ya.

Lookin' good!

The color I chose for the outside is called Swiss Coffee from Behr. This was yet another left-over paint I had floating around. Unfortunately, the paint went on all gloopy-gloppy. The texture was TERRIBLE. I had to go back and sand the entire thing down to smooth it out. I added a little bit of water to the paint to thin it out, and then put a second coat on the outside. The second time went MUCH better. The paint was quite a bit smoother. I did, however, decide to do a third sanding and subsequent coat of paint. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. The bit of extra effort worked out well. The outside came out very smooth and even, exactly how I wanted it.

Once the painting was finished, I needed to sand the drawer face and legs. This part had to be done by hand - my orbital sander is missing. Booo! This also kinda took forever. And because this took forever, I decided against staining and just decided to paint. I painted the drawer the green from the inside, and the legs were painted the same color as the outside. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

The legs post paint.

The hardware on this piece was honestly very annoying. It couldn't decide if it was gold or silver. Gold flakes kept coming off the drawer pull, revealing the silver underneath. The feet had the same issue, but were also pretty scraped up. I used nail polish remover to get the rest of the gold off of the handle. After about a half an hour of scrubbing, the pull was clean and shiny! The legs, however, were a different story. No amount of scrubbing was getting the gold off those things. Finally, I gave up and just decided to use the remainder of my most hated silver spray paint (you can read the story on that here). I was pleasantly surprised about how well it worked out. So, yay!

Finally, I was ready to seal this baby! After lots and lots of research, I chose to use Minwax Polycrylic. This stuff comes in various finished (satin, semi-gloss, and gloss), and I went with the gloss. I wanted the table to be shiny and have a wet look to it. Three coats of the polycrylic went on the table. I sanded (using a very fine grit sandpaper) between each coat, and gave it ample drying time. I don't think I could be happier with the finished product! Take a gander!