Dollar Daze

Eventually I would like either a lucite or glass/metal side table for my sitting room couch, but in the meantime I really needed to get something to put my lamp on.  I found this little Bombay Company side table at a yard sale a few weeks ago.  When I asked how much, the lady told me it was free!  "Just take if you want it," she said "but the top doesn't stay on the base."  My inner squirrel was so happy, but I felt funny about taking it for free because I jog by her house almost every day.  I didn't want her to look out her window and see me and think that I'm that woman who took her table for FREE!   So I gave her a dollar for it - wasn't that magnanimous of me?  Sheesh, I am certain she didn't think anything of it either way, she was very nice.. 

Someone had already primed it, so a light sanding and I was ready to go onto step two.  Two coats of Benjamin Moore white Alkyd paint in a satin finish.                                                       

Because I am using it in my sitting room, which is the same smoke blue and white room where I placed my vanity that I just finished.  I decided to stripe it in wide stripes to make it a little more contemporary. 

 When striping a piece of furniture, especially one small like this, I like to use an odd number of stripes so there is one exactly in the middle of the table - I just think it looks nice and balanced.  I decided five would work here and measured the table length, 23.75 inches.  The kids had the calculater so I pulled up my trusty google search and typed in 23.75 inches divided by 5 and the magical google gave me the answer to how wide each stripe should be!  I didn't even have to do math!  Life is good!

Now I used my blue painters tape and taped off my outside edges for the blue stripes.  A little hint when you are doing stripes, use a tiny piece of tape and put it in the middle of the stripes you DO NOT want to paint.  We can all get distracted sometimes and this helps keep me from accidentally painting the wrong one.  I rolled on two coats of my blue and removed the tape as soon as I was done with the second coat.  There was a little touch up to be done along the edge between the white and blue lines, which I used a little 1 inch artists brush to do and voila!  All done! 

The final challenge was to attach the base to the top.  This was accomplished simply by drilling three holes and using screws to screw the top to the base.  I added a little wood glue to the area first and was careful not to drill all the way through the table.  I may not put anything too heavy on it, but it will certainly hold my lamp so I can read at night!    Not bad for something less than the price of a candy bar!!