I cleaned the base of the coffee table with bleach cleaner to get rid of all the mold.
After it dried, I roughed up all the surfaces on the legs and base.
Then I primed it to seal the wood and prepare it for painting.
I painted the legs and skirt with two coats of Benjamin Moore Impervo white paint (leftover from our living room trim.)
I always paint the undersides or the hidden side first, then I use a technique for elevating my object and keeping it from sticking to the drop cloth.
Simply tap a nail into each leg after you have painted the foot. Then turn the table over and continue to paint. Some other bloggers have found the Rockler painting pyramids, but I have yet to find any in my local stores to try them out. Hey Rockler, if you are reading this, send me some painting pyramids so I can give them a spin and see if they work better than my nail technique!
After the paint dried, I removed the nails from the bottom of the legs and hammered floor protectors in their place.
Now, to replace the masonite top with something with more age and character. I searched through my wood stash and found these two discarded boards that I think used to be in someone’s closet or pantry.
The boards fit well on the skirt of my coffee table, but it had a funny cut out on the edge of one of the boards. It was probably a profile cut.
It didn’t look very old or interesting to me, so I drew a line diagonally along the board and cut it off with my jigsaw. That looked much better! More like a salvaged board. Then I flipped the cut board to the inside edge.
I distressed my new table top with a heavy chain, pry bar, and hammer (read more here.)
At this point, I went to my “oops” paint stash and chose this gallon of $5 baby blue color.
I know it looks like a nursery color, but I wanted something vibrant to show through after glazing and antiquing. I painted the whole table top this light blue color. Luckily I was able to skip the priming step because the boards had previously been painted.
After the boards were dry, I sanded, glazed and then applied a stain to antique it (more on these techniques here).
Then I turned the boards upside down, and used the screws I set aside to attach my boards to the table skirt.
I decided not to re-use the handle hardware that was originally on the coffee table. Instead I wanted to give this table a beachy look. So, I added some shells to the front of the coffee table using my new favorite glue, E-6000 glue. This glue holds super strong, I even set the table down on the shell edge (forgetting they were there,) and the shell broke, but all the shells remained glued to the table. Now that is a strong bond!
My last step was to put a protective coating of polyurethane over the whole coffee table. I used an old can of oil based polyurethane that had yellowed. This added the perfect age to my coffee table.
And here is my Trashy Coffee Table turned into a Beautiful Beachy Babe!
Not bad for a new coffee table for our porch that essentially cost me NOTHING, since I already had all the paint and supplies leftover from other projects. What do you think? Do you like her color? Or too baby blue for you?