Early last year I found an interesting auction listing at a house in Connecticut with whom I’d done business in the past. When the item came up for bidding I managed to snag it for a pittance. Shipping wasn’t steep, and so for less than $200 I had a very swanky, if scruffy, coffee table.
The enamel was shot, but the base and top were otherwise sound, so I got to work. First I sanded off the old enamel, and using the same paint I’d purchased for the little round shelves in the foyer, I sprayed a couple coats across the surface.
Here is the listing shot and then some progress shots.
Then I used my trusty Cricut, but when my original plan to use vinyl to create a design proved very, very fiddly and annoying, I instead adapted my idea and made a giant stencil. While the stencil was also fiddly, it was easy to work with in the end. Don’t worry though, I found another use for the vinyl…as wallpaper for the knickknack house.
Then I slowly hand-painted the negative space of the stencil using the same metallic paint on the walls of the great room. While the paint was drying, I used some Barkeeper’s Friend to buff up the base, then sealed the tabletop with polyurethane. When I went to Tap Plastics previously to have a front for the knickknack house cut, they also cut a circle for me to fit the coffee table top. I got the idea of a plexi top from the POs actually–they had such things on several of the cabinet tops here and left them when they moved away.
Then I put all the bits together. The result is a gorgeous custom coffee table that fits right in with the other furnishings downstairs in the great room.
