#158 Green is good!

My attempt to rescue my IKEA coffee table with duct tape didn't work out as well as I thought it would. The table looked bright and happy, but it just didn't wear well. The edges of the tape would scootch up when we propped our feet on the table (the real reason to have a coffee table, right?) and then Jake's hair (that wasn't attached to his body any longer) would get stuck to the sticky exposed edges. Alas...another great idea deemed Not So Great.

What to do?

Rearrange and redo!!!

I put the coffee table that had been in the music room in the living room. It's a wonderful old pine farm table that my mom and dad cut down to the perfect height. It's smaller than the IKEA table was, so it fits the space better.

Then I lugged up a beautiful old coffee table that had been stashed in the basement and had a go at painting and glazing it. It was the table Mom and Dad had in their  first home before I was born and has traveled 'round the country (and world) through the years. At some point my niece Mary attempted to strip it and refinish it but stopped. And somewhere along the line it incurred a lot of dark water rings on its surface. Here's the before:

Refinishing it promised to be bigger task than I wanted to take on, so I decided to paint and glaze it. The April 2010 issue had a detailed photo (page 92) of a beautiful green Chinese table that inspired me. I loved the shade of green and the dark shading of the glaze. Here's the table now:

This photo shows the green more accurately:

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and that I'm finally able to use this table again. I've always loved it and even had it in my first apartment. It triggers lots of good memories. I'm letting it cure for a week or so before I pile on all the books and magazine that normally cover the coffee table in this room; you can see them stacked up behind the loveseat.

So it looks like for now my coffee table troubles are over. I'd still like to try my hand at building one like I saw in a magazine, but that will have to wait. There are too many other projects I have to tackle first.

Like finishing my studio. (Okay, okay - but I've got to paint the hall radiator cover first!)