Sofa Table ReDo

I found this little ‘treasure in the making’ at a yard sale in Stillwater, MN a couple weeks ago. Hmm… I wonder if you’re going to like the after look of this sofa table redo?

Yep, for $30 I picked up this wonderfully narrow, long sofa (or console) table.

Here’s the full ‘before’ picture… uh well the mostly before picture that is. I almost forgot to take a ‘before’ so stopped the painting production to snap a quick photo, just for you. 😉

The size is great, and the shape is really pretty, I just don’t like the wood grain.

So, spray paint is out again!!

I bought this pretty soft gray color…

and of course used my spray paint sprayer attachment that makes spray painting so much easier on the fingers.

After I had already started painting, I realized that I had forgot to remove the brass knobs on the top… dang it!

Well, no sense crying over spilled milk, as they say… just repaint them too…

The part of this sofa table redo that took the longest was deciding on a graphic. I started out with a lot of colorful graphics, but just didn’t like them all that much at a second look.

Once I found this one, I knew it was the one for me! This is actually a cropped section of the whole antique garden plan graphic. I had to mess around with it a lot to figure out how to get it to the exact right size for the table top.

Then I emailed it to Office Depot to have them print it out in tile form. (that means it takes multiple pieces of paper put together to make the whole picture, like a mosaic)

Here are the pieces ready for completion. The entire table, even the top, (and knobs, dang it!) are painted gray, just to seal off any stain that might think about bleeding through the paper for some reason.

After carefully trimming the prints,

I laid them out on the table top to confirm they fit correctly, then carefully trimmed out the little squares where the knobs sit too.

Now the fun part!

Mod Podge! Whoo Hoo!!

I actually love this stuff… or at least what it can do and be the catalyst to transform furniture and art in so many fun and creative ways… so fun!

If you’ve never used Mod Podge, HERE IS WHERE you can get it. It is the glue and sealant all in one.

So paint on a coat of Mod Podge, then ever so carefully lay your graphic on top of it… This can be a little tricky, wrinkles can happen and it’s pretty sticky stuff, I haven’t had good luck trying to pull the paper back off and re positioning it, like you can with regular wallpaper.

I just kept working from the left to the right, slightly overlapping each piece as I went. (fortunately the guy printing it, repeated the border a little on each piece, so I could overlap and still match the pattern.)

After all the pieces were on, I immediately went over the entire top with another coat of Mod Podge.

Once the Mod Podge starts to really soak into the paper, the paper will tend to pucker up… don’t panic! I’ve found that as it dries, it pretty much just goes back down flat again… except where I started to fuss with it, then there will remain a wrinkle or bubble.

Here’s a tip I’ve learned from Mark Montano since re-doing these stools: Lightly mist the graphic, front and back, with water before setting it on the Mod Podge to prevent air bubbles.

It dries pretty quickly. So as soon as it was dry, I recoated, let that coat dry, and recoated again, for a total of 3 top coats.

Here’s the sofa table after the newly painted brass knobs were back in place:

So…

what do you think?

Do you like the wood grain look better, or the painted and decoupaged look better?

Me? I’m glad to say I like the redo look better… because that’d stink to have to undo it all. 😉

The sofa table fits great in the breakfast room under the bay window!

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