Inspired By Katy Lopez

One of my mothers co-workers did this great redo and wrote an article all about it in their employee newsletter. I decided to share it with all of you because I love seeing these kind of makeovers. This is proof that anyone can use the things they already own, combine it with some creativity, a little hard work, and have great results!!!

Great Job Katy!!!!!

Thanks for letting me share.

Let me give you a little background.   My idea to refurnish my nasty 1970’s poker table came about because of our recent move into a new home. The new dining area in the kitchen is considerably smaller than my space in my old house.  Previously my large square dinner table occupied the kitchen space and my poker table was placed in the formal dining area.  This worked well because I could ignore it, and used it as a craft table for my kids.  My thought was to make the poker table “pretty” so I could use it everyday without wanting to throw it out on the curb or smash it with a hammer.  I know this might be a shock to most of you, because well yes, I like to spend money…so for me to actually consider recycling something instead of getting something new is novel.  Let’s have a moment of silence to my new maturity level.

I wish I had a complete “before” picture of the table, but my over-productive and extremely lovely husband moved the table and broke it apart for refurnishing before I could say anything.  But I’m sure you can imagine what it looked liked from these photos.  Not bad, but not my style… AT ALL.   

My first idea was to keep the legs

and acquire antique feet to replicate this look

Well, what I thought would be a great idea and any easy find turned out to be well, still a great idea, but extremely hard to locate parts to complete project.  So after a long day of store hopping with three children and 3 adults, I ended up purchasing a table for $50 bucks... well the bottom half of a table because I gave the top part to the store helper who had a strong aroma of alcohol… hummm. 

My first step was to sand and prep the veneer.  I accidentally took all of it off the poker table side...ooops, miner set back.   I then applied the primer I painted it with a really pretty yellow I used in my laundry room.  After much debate with my husband about keeping it the yellow I decided to still paint it blue because who doesn’t want a blue table?  I applied two coats of the blue and after the blue dried it was time to antique the table.  Yeah!!!  First I got all crazy with my bad self and sanded the edges and corners and then I mixed a light wood stain with glaze and applied the mixture to the table with a cloth.  This technique I decided was a neat way to antique something, but way too dirty looking for me.  So after applying the mix, my husband and I spent time trying to remove most of the glaze and stain. LOL.  (he loves me ;).  Now was the fun part, do I seal with polyurethane or do I seal with wax?  I went with wax. Why not, wax on wax off right?  NOTE: When you apply the wax, do not think it is a good idea to go to sleep without polishing the wax off.  Well, as you can imagine, it dried and my powder puff arms could not sand off all the wax globs. So, what did I do next you ask?  I decided I needed some umph and took myself to the auto parts store to get a buffer that attaches to a drill.  (Yes, the boys in the shop laughed at me and thought I was nuts when I told them what I wanted to do, silly boys)  The buffer got off all the nasty globs and smoothed it out and after applying two more coats to the table top, I was done!!!

Yeah!  So lets recap.  I spent $50 for a half of a table and $20 for a can of paint (I had the other supplies at home) I had to apply one layer of wood filler (for the side I took the veneer off. Major fowl! Just super glue that bad stuff down if it starts to peel),four coats of paint, one coat of glaze/stain, and three coats of wax. 

But most importantly I started off with this…

                                                        and I ended up with this!!