presto chango

On Saturday I painted our end tables to match the base of our couch. Paul has had these end tables since he bought his condo in Ann Arbor when he started grad school. They've been really great tables and held up to quite a few moves. I didn't want to pay for new tables since we already had some that worked well but they matched the woodwork of the house, not the woodwork of the other living room furniture. So I went back to some old posts from two of my daily DIY bloggers, combined their advice and went for it.

It took me awhile to find a color that I liked and that I thought would work well. The base of our couch is a dark espresso color but when I put dark browns next to it, the wood went black and when I put blacks to it, it went quite brown. So I grabbed out "Black Bean" from my Sherwin Williams box and hoped for the best. It was close enough. I took the color to Home Depot and had them color match it for me in a small tester of Behr's Ultra paint, which I have been thoroughly in love with since I painted the kitchen.

I bought the 8 oz tester of flat paint because I knew I wouldn't need much and it worked great for Jenny's mom's console table.

I then took Young House Love's advice and sanded the tables down, ever so slightly with sandpaper we had left over from another project.

And then I went back to Jenny's post when deciding what to apply the paint with. I used a mini foam roller to apply the paint but YHL, swears by not using a foam roller because they would leave small bubbles but it seems like every other post that is on Little Green Notebook is about a piece of furniture she painted herself and they always turned out great. So I held my breath with the foam roller and was relieved when I didn't get the bubbles but a perfectly smooth finish.

I applied a coat, let it dry and came back and rolled another. After both coats dried, I took a brush and filled in all of the grooves around the legs and the base of the table. The great thing about these tables is that they took the paint really well but the red of the table still gave the paint a good undertone. They don't necessarily have that "cottage painted furniture" thing going on which was what I was trying to avoid in this room.

Last but not least, I applied water based polyurethane (two coats, just like YHL said). I used the polyurethane that they recommended (Minwax's Polycrylic Water Based Clear Gloss finish in semi-gloss) and it worked well for all of the vertical surfaces but I wasn't thrilled with how streaky it made the top of the table. I worked hard to put on an even layer and to brush it on in a way that kept it from leaving marks but had no luck. I am going to try and lightly sand them and then possibly apply one more layer, just to the top with another mini foam roller and see how it turns out. I'm also following the 48 hour rule and letting them sit completely untouched so that I don't get funny nicks or spots (except a 21 year boy sat his hiney down on one Saturday night to which I quickly yelled, "up, up, UP, UP!!!").

I am happy with the way they turned out overall and am happy that all the furniture now looks like it belongs together.

The coffee table that matches these end tables is in our current TV room and had been painted a few years ago black to match the futon and other furniture in the room. It however is in some sore shape and either needs a new coat of paint or needs to be distressed a bit more to make it look like that was the effect we were going for. That however is another project for another....month maybe.