Saturday, June 2, 2012

Breakfast Nook Table Re-do

I am so excited to share with you our first big furniture painting project! When we moved into this house two months ago we realized that we needed to buy a small dining table for our breakfast nook area. I was so excited that this house had a separate formal dining area because I love my dining table and like to show it off. Yeah for me!!

OK, back to the project at hand. We could have bought a simple table and chairs set from Target or a furniture store but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money because depending on when and where we move again we may not use it at the next house. So I wanted to check out a local furniture consignment shop. I am glad I did!!
We found this simple table with four chairs for $179!! That is so cheap. It had a few minor scuffs and scratches but I didn’t care because I knew I wanted to paint it to blend with our kitchen cabinets. While we were in there we looked around at the other stuff and I found this great mirror for $8.

$8, SOLD!!!
I loved the shape of the frame and it was in great shape.  I had been looking for a great shaped frame for my Menu chalkboard for months with no luck and then I found this one for pennies basically. That will be a later blog post! OK, I am side-tracking, back to the table.
So like I said I wanted to paint it a warm white to blend with our kitchen cabinets and keep the space light and fresh looking. I chose the color String of Pearls from Valspar. It isn’t an exact match to the cabinets but we wanted it to blend without being too matchy-matchy.
Here are the supplies needed:
Paint (I used Valspar Eggshell finish in String of Pearls)
Primer (I used Zinsser Bulls Eye)
Polycrylic (I used Minwax)
Paint brush or roller (I used a paint brush because of all the corners and crevices with the chairs)
Sand paper (I used light and medium grit)

I don’t have a great before picture because we took the thing apart to get it home and then we got right to working on it. You can at least see the color of the wood in this photo.

First we sanded each piece. Since you are using primer you don’t have to sane too much unless there are a lot of scratches and ding marks. We were lucky ours didn’t have many. Wipe each piece with a damp clean rag or paper towel to remove the dust.  Now you can start priming, we did 2 coats of primer since the wood was a dark color and we were painting it white. Be sure to let each coat dry before applying the next.

Once primed go through and lightly sand out any drip marks and wipe clean. Now you can begin painting, again we did 2 coats of paint as well for good coverage.  Let dry in between coats of paint.
Lastly, we added a coat of polycrylic to help seal and protect our hard work; it also adds a light gloss. You can do more than one coat of this if needed. Once everything was dry we put it back together and placed it in the nook area.
I love how it turned out!! It is perfect since it is just us two most of the time and now we don’t have an empty space. It amazes me what paint can do!!

Linking to:

TDC Before and After