New Coffee Table

Well, I did it. I completed my first DIY, home improvement project. Last Saturday, Mitchell and I slept in, made some breakfast and then discussed what we were going to do for the day. The options were work on a craft or go on a day trip to somewhere nearby. We chose a craft!

I decided that I wanted to introduce an accent color into our previously neutral living room. My friend Allyson helped me decide that a light blue would look pretty and I went online and looked at color palettes to have a guideline to follow. After buying some throw pillows, here is what my living room looked like before...

I have had an itch to paint something lately so the subject of my scratch: the coffee table! It was a hand-me-down from my parents so it's older and it was free so if I totally messed this up, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

I have a Behr paint colors booklet so I held a pillow up to it and found the closest color. Now off to Home Depot!

Our supplies:

-Behr paint in Harmonious

-Power sander (you could sand it with your hand but that would be no fun, invest in a sander)

-Purdy paint brush

*ignore our ugly garage please, it was super windy outside so we couldn't go in the backyard

The table before

Sanding it down

Start painting!

Ta-da!

But I didn't stop there. I saw this really cute idea in the HGTV magazine where they found a cute fabric and mod-podged it onto the top of the table. I wanted to do something similar but didn't want to spend the money on fabric and all the Mod Podge. I saw this idea on one of my friend's blogs and thought I could copy it onto the top of my table.

Supplies for this part:

-Stencil

-1/4" paint brush

-pencil for tracing

-accent paint color (I used Honeymoon by Benjamin Moore)

My stencil

After tracing the stencil onto the table

Painting in the lines

This part can get kinda tricky so here is a tutorial.

Tracing the stencil took me about 20 minutes and painting the lines took about 2 hours. But here is what it looks like now!

Drawing the pattern straight is really hard so don't look that close! ;)

And here it is in my living room:

Yay! Success! The accent color on the table turned out a little yellow-y which I don't love but I don't care enough to go back and repaint the lines. :P There are still a few things I would like to change about the room but I have to pace myself so I don't burn out or spend tons of money. The great thing about all of the supplies from Home Depot is they were all FREE! We still had gift cards from our wedding to use. :D

Mitchell was working on a project at the same time so once he completes his project, I will post what he did!