Round but Petite: Painted Coffee Table

Have you ever had one of those projects you were so excited to get started on and completed, and surprisingly started it and completed it in the same month? And then gotten so excited about sharing the project with all of your loyal blog readers (Hi Mom!), in the same month the project was started and completed in? Yeah, I only got the first thing done. So here a year later, I shall share with you the saga of the round coffee table.

You see, I’d been looking for the perfect round yet petite coffee table to place in the petite but not round living room. I had been using an old Lane cedar chest to act as a coffee table, but with a dog that was oddly curious about the blonde veneer (she enjoyed the occasional lick) and sweating glasses of sweet tea it was time to find something a little more durable and less cherished. I toyed with the idea of using  the ever trendy ottoman in place of a coffee table, but that didn’t quite work out as planned, a tray does not provide enough hard surface for our needs. We spend a lot of time in the living because, well, that’s where the TV is, and where ever we spend time we are going to be doing little projects that require a hard surface. So, I knew we needed a true coffee table, one that could with stand sweating sweet tea glasses, and even tho I don’t like to think about it, dogs that enjoy tasting the furniture (“Sharona, wipe!” Don’t ya miss Monk?).

Last year around this time, I was perusing through our local Goodwill and came across this beauty for 9.99.

Needless to say, since she’s in my backyard, I was all over that deal like Goldie fur on black denim. But, the finish was a little too dark, as in the exact same color as my couch.

See…

So, I needed a little contrast. Plus, I really wasn’t diggin’ the fake wood top and the scratched up legs.

 

I could have made it work, but honestly I just wanted to experiment with painted furniture. So, I read up on different techniques, I found that Centstational Girl has some good pointers on these types of things. You may know a lot more about this than I do or have another resource you found more helpful, but in my case her simple pointers were a life saver.

First, I decided that since the top of the table was super shiney, I would need to prime it before painting.

Then once the primer was dry, I painted my precious with Behr Premium Paint in Gardenia White semi-gloss. It’s a nice white, not too white, but not heavy in the blues or the pinks, it’s juuuust white. (Qwiet I’m hunting wabbit!) To keep from having those pesky roller or brush marks on this piece I used Floetrol. Essentially floetrol helps to sort of thin the paint, it makes for a slightly longer drying time but it’s worth it.

To apply the paint, I used a small trim brush for the sides and the legs, and a small sponge roller for the top. Nothing fancy, I know the experts say you should use good quality tools, but I’m too lazy to wash out brushes and rollers, so I pick mine up at the dollar store. Once I’m done painting, the brushes and rollers go away. Not exactly green, I know.

Anywho, I love how it turned out! Did I mention I finished this project in the fall?


Let’s just pretend I’m ahead of the game and this picture was taken more recently than a year ago.

Naw…I can’t lie,here’s how she looks now…

Here’s a closer view, also I just wanted to show off my yellow cow again.

The coffee table has held up pretty well over the past year, there are a few knicks and scratches. But that’s a given seeing as how much this table gets used, plus I didn’t bother to seal it with a latex paint sealant. I may repaint it, and  use that sealant to further protect from those knicks and scratches, and also to help with the stickiness. Latex paint has a little bit of a sticky feeling at first, so if you’re like me and can’t wait a few days for the paint to fully cure, a sealant would prevent decorative trays from sticking to your newly painted coffee table. Not that I’ve ever had to pry a decorative tray off of a newly painted coffee table…

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April’s photo dump

As I may have mentioned a time or two, I have a penchant for taking a ridiculous amount of photos, but sadly I don’t have the same penchant for blogging about them. So to remedy that problem, you have the honor of witnessing my first ever photo dump. Yeah, I’ve done monthly wrap ups, and I even did an entire blog recap when I hit 100 posts. But this time, I don’t really have a reason for sharing random photos, except just for the sheer joy of putting them out there. So, grab a tall glass of sweet tea and get comfy…

During the month of April I celebrated my 20+10+1 birthday. (I’ll let you do the math.)

Bubba makes a homemade birthday cake for me every year. And every year Annie-dog supervises.

Besides the delicious cake, I also received tulips for my birthday. Purple ones…

And white ones! Oh, and I finally got to use my owl vase!

The weekend before my birthday we took a little trip down to Las Cruces  where we viewed the raging Rio Grande River.

Visited with Bubba’s family…

Dined at one of our favorite Italian food establishments…

Then on our way home, saw many desolate areas…

After all the birthday celebrating had calmed down, it was time to celebrate Easter. One of my favorite holidays, not only is it a holiday filled with pretty pastels and Peeps (come on how could you not love sugar covered marshmallows?) it’s also a day to celebrate our Savior’s glorious resurrection.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3

Apparently, this photo dump turned into a recap of April, and of course a recap of a national holiday, my birthday!!

The O in hOtel

Wow-wee, it’s been way too long since I last posted. I miss my little blog-y home, and all my readers (hi Mom!!).

As promised, I’ll be sharing some photos from my little work trip to Los Angeles. I will apologize in advance as I realize most of you will find fire escapes and yet another sky scraper quite boring. But for this girl from a town that has only one tall building, it was a pretty awesome sight!

Honestly, I’m not really sure how to organize these pictures into posts. When I forced you to see, when I shared with you my shots from our Charleston trip I broke those down into each day we were there. However, with these it’s a little more difficult, because some days I took loads of photos and others not so much. So, I’ll break them down into 3 categories: room, board, and sites.  I’ll try to make them into three posts, but we’ll see what happens, remember I have that itchy shutter finger, so I’ve got LOADS of shots I just can’t wait to share!

On with the room, we stayed at a boutique hotel called The O Hotel. I have no idea what the “O” stands for unless it stands for “O, this hotel is dang expensive!”. But I shouldn’t complain, the cost of lodging did not come out of my pocket, and it was pretty nice and more importantly clean.

The room itself was pretty basic, bed, desk, tv, bathroom.

Sorry for the fuzzy photos, it was pretty dark in there!

Aside from the small-ish but comfy bed, I had a great view!

Yup, that’s a block wall. Apparently in the big city you have to pay big bucks for a view. This was a hard pill for this southwestern girl to swallow, where views and wide open spaces are free to all.

Here’s the view when laying on the bed, it’s a little more interesting than what you get when standing in front of the window.

Yup a parking garage, while visiting the City of Angels I came to understand that Los Angeles residents really do love their cars. But since they all loved their cars so and insist on driving them everywhere, they must park them somewhere, hence the 50 million parking garages I counted while in downtown LA.

Aside from the great views, the hotel room offered storage for the weary travelers treasures.

Sorry for mess, I didn’t bother to pick things up. It was the last day and I had forgotten to take photos of the room before I messed it up.

They offered a luggage rack and a small closet, which was fine as I am not one to really unpack while traveling, I’m more of a throw it in a suit case and don’t worry about organizing it type of girl.

My favorite part of the entire hotel was probably all of the marble, I LOVE marble and would love to incorporate it somewhere in the yellow shoebox. But cost restraints and the high maintenance have been a slight marble deterrent to me.

Here’s the shower, I didn’t really care for the hand held only shower option, but the water was hot and the pressure was good.

Oh yeah, and the shower area didn’t completely close off, so if you weren’t careful you could easily flood the bathroom while singing “Oops I did it Again” during hair washing. They had tracks for a shower door, but no shower door. Hmm…very curious indeed.

Oh, and I should mention the shower gel/shampoo/conditioner holder. I loved this idea, I didn’t use any of the products due to my ridiculously sensitive skin, but it’s a great way to keep essentials handy without having them fall off shelves and bruise big toes. Not that I speak from experience or anything.

Remember when I mentioned the marble? Oh, the marble, it was deliciously creamy, light and bright. They had it everywhere, the vessel sink was even made of marble.

I learned that if I were to ever get a vessel sink, it would need to be slightly more rounded on the bottom. This one didn’t really drain all that well as there was frequently water standing in the bottom.

This may have been mentioned previously, but I loved all the creamy marble, but I didn’t love the slate flooring they paired it with. It seemed a little cold.

The room was small and stylish, but so was the lobby. It was cozy and quaint, but with a restaurant and bar it could get pretty loud and crowded on a Saturday night.  But on a Friday afternoon it was pretty quiet.

The fireplace was a little modern for my taste, but the brick work and lighting were very chic. And I would be remiss not to mention the high ceilings, they really do open up a small space.

Honestly, most of the hotel was a little too modern for my taste, but I guess I’m just an old lady who enjoys well worn, curvy vintage finds opposed to the sleek clean lines of the modern style. Thankfully though, I didn’t spend very much time hanging around the room or the hotel in general. There was way too many things to see, eat, and photograph. In the next couple of days I’ll show you what I saw and most importantly what I ate while visiting the fair city of LA.

Don’t be scared, I promise  I won’t rattle on as much next time!

Virtual Transformations

On a recent trip to a nearby thrift store I spied with my little eye, some treasures that needed just a little polishing. Unfortunately, I have neither the time, room, or a way of moving such treasures. So, instead of bringing home these jewels in the rough, I took some photos to share with you.

First up is a pair of chairs, I practically swooned.

I apologize for the quality of the photo, I had to use my point shoot as the big camera was a little conspicuous. Plus, florescent lights aren’t forgiving on anyone.

These chairs may not look so nice to the naked eye, but you’ve got have vision. They could be turned into this:

Via Pinterest Via Flickr (don’t you hate when you find the perfect picture, but can’t find the original link?)

Or they could be re-created into this $500 West Elm Chair:

Via West Elm

Or you could use a bold pattern to make them a statement piece, like this Target chair for $400:

Via Target

The chairs I am swooning were a cool $15.99  a pop:

Now that I’ve shopped around, these lovelies may have to come home with me.

During the same shopping excursion I found this curvy girl:

She needs some work, but nothing a little bit of stripping and paint couldn’t fix.

Especially with dove tailing like this.

And with such beautiful lines. At $129 she’s not a cheap date, not an expensive one, but considering the April hours it would take to make her pretty, I just couldn’t justify the purchase. But if I could have talked myself into this beauty, she could be turned into something like this:

Via Oh Dee Doh

No, there’s no bun, but these vintage dressers do make cute changing tables.

Via Dwellings by Devore

Or this beauty, the lines are a bit more simple, but you get the idea:

Via Little Green Notebook

Aww yes, nothing like virtually transforming a vintage treasure into something even more beautiful.