My $20 Table Transformation

It is hard to believe that about three months after our cross country move that we realized our little foyer table was missing.  Gone.  Left this area on the great Mayflower van, never to have been seen again. We loved this little table, one of the small scale pieces from the Bombay Store, a store I also miss very much.

 

To replace the table I decided on finding an old piece with some character.  I love old furniture and love painting certain pieces.  You do have to be careful about which pieces you paint, you can ruin the value of some antique pieces.

Anyway, I stopped by a very junky looking furniture store here.  The owner was a dark skinned man with long flowing yellow hair and the store was a complete rabbit's warren.  It was downright creepy, him following behind me as I had to lift up quilts/blankets to go into and out of the rooms. There were no doors. I chose this little table and man did it ever have some problems.  Clint thought there was not much hope for it.  The most easily fixed problem was its short leg.  I fixed it by gluing a slice of cork to the bottom of the leg.  It worked like a charm.

I can't help but add the yellow haired man asked if he could help me carry the table to the car.  He asked me this as I was struggling to get it through the door to take to the car.  I thought if he had to ask me such a thing instead of actually just picking it up himself and carrying it a few feet outside to the car for me, that he was ill mannered.

I decided at that instant I would not be going back into that rabbit's warren again.

I sanded the top, primed it one day when I had primer already on my paint roller from priming the dining room wall for the mural.  I will spare you the problems of large screws, bolts and added on pieces of wood for support at the top of the legs.  Hey, but what do you expect for $20?

For the top I decided on decoupage, using old foxed and yellowed pages from a 1920s English Literature school text book.  My favorite part of the pages that I selected for the decoupage was the script writing, notes back and forth between two students.  One note read, "I bet he was mad when he saw me sitting with you last night." This message must have been written to a boy.

I used Mod Podge for the decoupaging.  Lesson learned:  For a smooth surface, apply an even coat to the surface upon which the paper will be applied.  Also apply a thin even coat to the surface of the paper that will be placed on the just applied Mod Podge surface.  This way there will be less air pockets and wrinkles.

Gathering up things I already had around the house, I was quite pleased with our new "old" table.  It appears to be a perfect fit.

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