From Goodwill to Good Deal - End Table Transformation

In April of this year, I found this end table at our local Goodwill. It was sturdy and I could see potential for this to be turned into something better. The price was right too...a real bargain at $5.00. So I brought it home and stored it in the garage.

When my daughter made the decision to move to Austin, I knew she was going to need furniture, so I remembered this end table and knew it was going to have a new home. This is the picture of it after I started sanding on it...I FORGOT to take a before photo as I was excited to get to work on it. The top is wood and in our hast to sand all the old finish off the top, well we sanded a bit too much......more on that later.

Once the piece was sanded and wiped free of the dust, I primed this with two coats of primer.

Then 3 coats of paint. On this project, I used spray paint and it worked just fine. Now remember I told you we sanded a bit too much on the top, well...I thought once we painted it the imperfections would go away. That was not the case and I could not stand how the top looked. I almost decided to trash this project due to the way the top of the table looked, but I was having a hard time with that.

How did I fix this problem? Well, I will tell you. I sent my daughter to the scrap book store and she selected 4 sheets of scrapbook paper for the top. I had some Mod Podge Hard Coat that works well on furniture and we used that. We adhered the paper to the top of the table and gave it 4 or 5 coats of Mod Podge. Let me tell you, this stuff dries hard and works great on furniture, you just have to buy the right product for the project youa re working on.

Here is the details of the paper. This turned out perfectly and hid all the imperfections that we caused when over sanding the top. And I might add, this was a cheap fix for the problem too. I think the paper cost under $1.50 and I already had the Mod Podge. In using the Mod Podge Hard Coat that is for furniture, it dries hard and will hold up well for the table.

And here is the table in my daughters apartment. Notice the top, it almost looks like a slate tile top but it is not. I love how this turned out and I have to say, not bad for about $7.00. The other supplies I already had on hand so this indeed was a thrifty project that turned out great....except for the little mishap we had, but with a little imagination, that was a easy fix.