Coffee table up-cycle

My sister needed a coffee table for her new living room. It's a pretty big space, so she was looking for something pretty meaty. We were at a thrift store when we saw this beauty. 

Adrienne was a little skeptical at first. After all, it's a giant brown rectangle. After much contemplation, we decided it had hope. It was cheap ($20) and the additional storage didn't hurt either. 

Ok, so now what? The back wall in this picture, which is the kitchen/ dining room, is going light gray-blue. We want to tie the living room and the kitchen together, so we chose to use the wall color on the table. I told Adrienne all about the new finish I had been using... Yep... Chalk paint and wax. :)

I have had a lot of fun with this technique. It's stupid easy and cheap. And of course it looks super cute. Its just time consuming so plan to block out some time. The supplies needed:

Latex paint

Plaster of Paris ($7 ish)

Black paint

Vaseline

Wax (I use Minwax paste wax  $8 ish)

Painters tape

Glaze (optional)

Rag

High grit sandpaper

Cheese cloth $2

All of these supplies with the exception of Vaseline can be found at the Home Depot or Lowes. 

There is no sanding or priming needed with the chalk paint finish. So just make sure it's clean. Add black paint to any areas that you want to have black showing through. I like to put it on the edges, cracks, and corners. Let it dry. 

Next, add Vaseline over the black paint with your finger. Don't put It on too thick. Wherever you put the Vaseline, your next coat of paint will not stick, so just keep that in mind while applying. 

Next, mix your chalk paint. 1/2 cup plaster of Paris with 1/2 cup warm water. Dissolve. Mix in to 2 cups of your latex paint. It's that easy! 

Now the fun part. Start painting! Brush it on going with the grain. It took 2 coats of chalk paint. 

Let it dry. It actually dries really fast. Plus we had a fan blowing on it. I know every other tutorial I have read says to let it dry over night, but this was ready to go in about 3 or 4 hours. So the next step was to wipe it down to reveal the black. 

It just wipes right off! After I wiped it all down, I took a really high grit sand paper and went over a few spots. We really liked the combination of both the black and the wood showing through. I feel like it adds a lot of depth and warmth to the piece. It's up to you however you want to make your own furniture. ;)

On this particular piece, there is an intricate design on the bottom that I wanted to stand out. I decided it would be faster to just glaze it. Apply glaze, let it sit until tacky, and then wipe off with a damp rag. The glaze will stick in all the cracks. 

Once it was all distressed and ready, we decided to add a chevron pattern to the top. I measured the length of the piece and determined how big I wanted the pattern. I watched a bunch of tutorials on how to paint a chevron pattern, but they all failed to tell me how to get I the right size so that the pattern would look even and centered. 

The table was 56" long, so I divided it by 8 and decided to make my triangle have a 7" base. I really think I just got lucky the way it worked out. I hate math. If you choose to do a pattern, just make sure it's even on the surface you are painting. However you choose to do that is up to you. 

We wanted it to be a subtle contrast. So we made another small batch of chalk paint using 1/4 cup plaster, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup blue paint, 1/2 cup white paint. Apply.

 We let it dry for about an hour and peeled off the tape. 

We enlisted the help of the kiddos to erase pencil lines from when I was tracing my pattern. 

Let it dry a full 24 hours before you apply any kind of top coat. We are using the wax finish. It's so easy! Just rub it on with cheese cloth, and buff it about 15-20 minutes later. We did 2 coats on the sides and 3 coats on the top. This is our final product:

It was a really fun project! Thanks for checking it out. 

-LeeAnn