Kitchen Table Makeover

I have to admit this is the first time I have ever straight up copied a project from another person…but I liked the idea SO much and the final outcome of the project was so awesome I just couldn’t help it! (Well, there are SOME things I did a little differently. )  I wanted to have a table for the screen porch where we could eat out there, play games, etc.  and I was looking for something that would seat 6-8 people. After much searching for just the right table, I found this one on Craigslist. It’s just what I was looking for…patience is a virtue! It has a leaf that is attached and folds up underneath the table, so it’s easy to use if we need to accommodate for a bigger crowd.

The table was pretty beat up, I mean…well loved by a lot of kids…Parts gouged out by a pencil, colorful magic marker drawings and the gloss finish was slowly chipping away. Exactly what I wanted! My dear friend, Ann, is so sweet and brings me her “Better Homes and Garden” magazines to flip thru and I just so happened to find a teeny tiny little coupon on one of the pages for 25% off a stencil from: Cutting Edge Stencils .

It was so ironic b/c that’s the same website the other girl got her stencil from. I looked at all the stencils, trying not to copy this girl to a “T”, but turns out the Paisley stencil was my favorite one too… it’s just so darn cute! And the stencil is awesome, no bleeds, easy to clean, I was very pleased!

First to prep the table I sanded it down and took all the original finish off the top of it. Then I wiped it down to get the wood dust off. 

after it's sanded

 And it was ready to stencil, that easy! I use white latex outdoor paint and a mini roller-I didn’t use a foam roller because they tend to hold more paint and I didn’t want it to bleed under the stencil. You don’t have to press down too hard…just a light pressure and I did 2 coats.  I layed the stencil in the middle of the table to get started and then I went out from there. 

One mistake I made was turning my stencil because I thought it would look neat not to have a “repetitive pattern” welllllll they are smart and made the stencil to line up and look never-ending..so don’t turn your stencil! Just keep painting, just keep painting... (let it dry, takes about 2 min to dry) and then line it up and paint the next section. Since I turned my stencil, it obviously wouldn’t line up so I had to wait for it to dry and then sand the paint off. Not too big a deal-just a 10 minute detour. 

if you make this mistake, the paint sands off really easy

ran the stencil down the middle first

almost done...

 Another thing I did was wrap the stencil around the edge of the table…I didn’t want it to look like there was a defining plain border going all the way around the sides of the table. 

done stenciling!

When the stenciling was done and the paint was dry, the next step was to stain it. That’s right, stain over all the hard work you just did! Trust me, you’ll love it! I used Minwax-All American and it turned out pretty dark since the wood was sanded down to the raw, so I’m glad I didn’t go with my Kona stain. Make sure you wear latex gloves-staining can get messy and have an old rag to wipe the stain off. I did two coats of stain because I wanted it a little darker in some places.

my sweet hubby helping me :)

After staining

I painted the legs and sides of the table a teal color- the same color I used on the China Hutch. I did two coats, my rule of thumb is two coats of paint on any and every thing you are going to paint! It always turns out smoother and covers any spots you may have missed the first go around. 

I waited 24 hours for the stain to really dry and then put on a semi-gloss poly-urethane to seal it.  

It gave the table a pretty little sheen and it will help protect it some from the elements.

And here she is, in all her lovely shabby farmhouse glory! Don’t yah love it!?

here's how we wrapped the stencil around the edges/corners

 It’s probably been the easiest project I have done so far and I’m SO happy with how it turned out!

Rain Chain

We have been slowly whittling away at the screen porch..it’s getting pretty close to being finished. There are just a lot of little details to finish out the project.  We got all the gutters up a couple weeks ago and installed my rain chain! It replaces the downspout, so when it rains the little cups fill up with water and the water flows down to the next one. Making a really pretty trickling noise and it looks kinda like a waterfall. We needed to somehow direct the rain away from the house once it trickled down the chain. I knew I wanted a really big clay pot and as always, my ever impressive engineer husband devised a plan.
 So, we went to a nursery where they have a TON of different huge clay pots. There were so many to choose from and they were all so neat but we chose the prettiest, tallest one. I just love the colors! (it's kinda dirty here but it's teal dripped into dark blue)

Any who, Ryan made an incognito French drain out of the clay pot and cut a hole about 3 inches in diameter in the bottom. Then he poured a small concrete slab for the pot to sit on and for the drain pipe to come up through.  He layed PVC pipe in the ground and it goes from the concrete slab to the backside of our stone retaining wall. So all the water trickles down the rain chain, into the clay pot, down the drain and under/out the other side of the wall. We also got some wire mesh and put it down in the pot to catch leaves and debris. That way the drain doesn't get clogged up from our thousands of acorns and leaves that fall. By looking at it you would never know..it just looks like a chain and a clay pot!

Eventually we are going to plant a nice little garden around it. But here it is...

Mesh in the bottom to catch debris

we cut in a funnel to make a round downspout

close up of funnel

Fairly easy and fun project! Ta-ta for now!