Coffee table…7 years later

I’m going to put a positive spin on this post. I didn’t just have a project coffee table sitting in the garage for-ever…it was just waiting for the perfect paint sample that I didn’t use on the arch cabinet of my dreams! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

How it all began

So waaaaay back in (cough) 2017 when we were building our house, I picked up this coffee table on the cheap from marketplace (it was shiny new back then) with the intent on possibly repurposing for the powder room vanity I wanted to DIY. I ended up finding the best sewing desk to use that instead but figured I’d eventually do something with the coffee table. Right?

The before?

I bought this thing so long ago, I’m sure I took a picture somewhere and can’t find it. Anywho…it wasn’t the prettiest but it had a nice shape. And somehow we broke the drawer so ended up just permanently installing the face of the drawer to the table.

Sand all the things!

Jim got me an orbital sander for Christmas and this was my first time using it! It was very satisfying getting it down to the bare wood.

Then I had to sand the edging and legs by hand…but I knew I was going to be painting the base so I just wanted to make sure it was sanded enough for primer/paint to adhere. The edging was a little tough as there were grooves that I couldn’t get into but then I kind of liked the two-tone and left it.

As I was sanding, I noticed lots of missing chips/pieces on the feet so I wood puttied and built back some of those pieces. It was passable!

After everything was sanded and puttied, I put a matte poly on the top because I really loved the look of the natural wood and wanted to maintain that. Little did I realize, the wood color would deepen to a more yellow color.

Blargh.

I hated it. So I moved on and primed the base of the table and decided to use one of the sample colors I had bought for the cabinet. I loved the tiffany blue but still did not love the color of the wood.

So I took out my trusty sander and sanded off the poly. I hand sanded the edging but not completely again because by this point I was ready to be done with it. I found a white stain that basically white washes the wood a little and gave it a coat. This is definitely more like I had in mind so I hesitantly did a coat of poly to seal it and called it a day!