A Tale of Two Tables (Pt. 2)

I love little projects because they make my heart tingle.  Little tables like the one I showed you HERE and the one I am going to show you today don't take a whole lot of time or money but it makes me feel like I got something accomplished off my list.  This table is more like a plant stand, but it can be used as a small side table on the back patio as well.  When I found this table (yes, found....you can read more about finding treasures here) it looked like this:

It had seen better days.  The top was a weathered cardboard type of material.  It was glued down to the base so I banged it out with my trusty hammer and scraped out all of the glue off of the stand.  It was time for fresh paint so I went with a simple black.  Clean and classic.

As for the top, I also wanted it to be clean a classic.  We recently remodeled our master bathroom (which you can see the progress HERE or HERE) so we had a pile in the garage that looked like this

It's all of our scrap pieces of travertine tile.  PERFECT!  We had everything that I needed to tile the top of the table.  The tile would not weather like the previous top and the travertine against the new black base would be perfect.  In order to get a perfect fit I simply traced the old top onto a spare piece of cement board that was left over.  Now that I had my measurements I dug through the pile of tile to pick out the pieces I liked and cut them to size and into the pattern that I liked.  I could have used a solid tile but I liked the medley look of smaller pieces put together. 

Now it was time for the thinset.  I found a disposable container so that when I was done I could just throw it away...no clean up around here...YES!  First pour a little thinset into your container...a little goes a long way...then slowly add water and mix.  You are looking for a peanut butter type consistency.  You don't want a smooth application, kind of rough it up a bit, it gives the tile something to grip to.

Then just stick your tile down and kind of smush it in so it sticks.  I already had everything measured, cut, and the pattern laid out so this step was easy peasy.  I let it dry overnight so that the thinset had plenty of time to dry.  Then I stuck it back into my frame and snuck some grout out of the bucket while the guys were grouting my shower and forced into the cracks between the tiles....wiped with a damp sponge...and done!

Since the table was free, the tile was destined for the trash, and I had the spray paint, thinset, grout and cement board all on hand.....this project was FREE!!  I love me some free!  My mom has two tables exactly like this and I tried to convince her to give me one but no luck.  I saved a small pile of tile so that if I come across another one I will have enough tile to make a mate.  I love the black with the travertine.  It's classic and will never go out of style.

A Tale of Two Tables (PT. 1)

I know. I know.  I'm going to start blogging more, but then I don't.  My excuse....WE ARE LIVING LIKE THE CAVEMEN DID!  What??!...I came up with this cool idea to shut off my cable, landline, and internet in order to save money and be able to shop around for a better bundle deal (we were bundled with Comcast for all three services).  Ok, so when I came up with this idea it wasn't like a REAL idea...it was more like me just venting.  The problem?...My husband thought it would be a GREAT idea, and once that man is on board there is no getting him off board, or on a different ship, or even tackling him and throwing him overboard.  Hence the statement, we are living like cavemen and cavewomen and cavechildren.  It seriously isn't that bad, the kids are reading more, there is more family time, more time to go to thrift stores and to DIY, and for the love of God no more ESPN!!  Enough rambling, here is the play-by-play on one of the two table that I have redone.  First I started with this:

(You can read about where I got the table in this post.)

The table was a creamy kind of color...in the photos it looks white, but it definitely was more of a creamy buttermilk kind of color.  Speaking of buttermilk, can you believe that people actually drink that stuff??  If you are one of those people please explain to me how you convinced yourself that buttermilk is good.  Ok, moving on.  So I liked the quaint little table, but it was outdated.  I first spray painted it white.....and it was just ehhh...then black...still didn't like it.  I feel like black or ORB has become so safe.  So I primed it back white. (Sorry people, I don't have pictures of all these steps, it's just one of those things.)  White didn't work, black didn't work, so the most logical and totally DARING (not really) thing to do was paint it a soft grey.  LOVE.  The color is called Castle Path by Krylon and it is in a Gloss finish.  I bought the paint on clearance at KMart a few months back.  They were clearancing out all of their spray paint so for $1/each I bought every color that I may one day need.  Not like a hoarding problem or anything...maybe just 10 cans.  Let me tell you though, my spray paint collection is starting to grow.  If we ever have a major power outage I will be able to keep myself occupied.  I could probably spray paint by candelight for about a week.  Back to the table.... when I first bought the little guy I knew that I wanted to do chevron stripes across the top.  I tried the just-tape-it-off-and-go method but it was all wonky.  I decided to use my awesome math skills and measure things out to get a more accurate stripe.  I lightly marked the sections with a pencil so that I would know where to points of my stripe should meet.  I only did this for the first stripe and then followed my pattern throughout the table.  Kind of like this: 

The white tape is just regular old masking tape so then I got kind of worried about paint bleed to I decided to lightly paint over it with my base color so it would help to seal the edges of the tape. (That way if the paint does bleed under the tape it will be the grey color and you will never know.)

Then I sprayed it with my white and tore off all of the tape before the paint was completely dry.

As for the finished result......so much cuter than before.....

My little $5.00 table looks like a million bucks baby...ok, maybe not a million, how about $29.99??  The tape held up pretty well.  There are a couple of spots that aren't perfection, but every DIY project has some kind of story to tell.  Both paints I used were by Krylon and were in a GLOSS finish. (The white is just their plain ol'white.)  I think the finish of the gloss adds to it's modern feel.  No more Grandma table around here people....we are now living in 2011. 

P.S. Can you believe that this year is almost over!!!??