Wood planked coffee table

We haven’t had a coffee table in our family room for a while – I took out our square one about a year ago and loved how open it felt, so it stayed that way. (It now lives at my sister’s.)

When I moved the furniture around to the way I’ll have it when all the construction is done I realized I really wanted one again. But I needed it to be long and skinny. I don’t have any long and skinny so I’ve kept my eye out for something that might work.

A few weeks back I found this at a local antique/thrift shop and it had me at WHEELS:

You know how much I love wheels on furniture. They are my jam.

The top of the table was a mess though, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it as I stood there, so I left it. (No returns so I had to make sure it would work.)

Fast forward a few weeks and I couldn’t get that table out of my head. I went back, it was still there and it came home with me. I still didn’t know what I was going to do with the top but I had to have it.

Initially I was thinking of sanding it down lightly and restaining the damaged parts, but when I got it home and took a closer look I realized it was a real mess:

 

I thought about keeping the leather top – for a minute. Then I got it cleaned off and saw it was beyond repair. The leather was cracked, which didn’t really bother me. But it also had paint and what looked like burn marks on it as well. And when I got it cleaned off I realized it was a very unattractive puke-brown color. Not so sad I couldn’t salvage it after that. :)

We have enough natural wood in the family room anyway, so my next plan was to paint it. I turned it over and realized I could take the top off:

Then I cleaned the heck out of the thing:

Grody. I lightly sanded it to get more grime off:

Then took it outside to spray prime it -- I just used a basic gray primer. By the way, I mention this a lot but it’s worth saying again – make sure to clean any piece you’re going to spray paint! If you don’t you’ll get the dreaded crackle.

I picked up another gray spray paint called silver fox by Valspar for the main color – I figured it would be easiest with the detail on the table.

Outside it looked decent, but when I brought it in I realized it was BLUE. Like, baby blue. What the??:

ARGH. Spray paint lids not matching the color are quickly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves. DIYer probs.

So I grabbed some chalk paint, which is what I should have done from the start. (But I still would have primed – these reddish stains can bleed through.) I used my CeCe Caldwell gray that I already had:

I shared my thoughts on this paint and how to apply it here – I really love these paints. It dries much lighter:

But when you apply the wax it gets richer and darker. I did have issues with the wax this time though, more on that in a minute.

I came up with a plan for the new tabletop – first I grabbed some scrap luan and cut it size with my jigsaw. I stained it just in case you’d see it under the new tabletop:

I used my nail gun to nail it into the edges where the old top sat. You can see there how much darker the chalk paint gets when you apply the wax by the way.

Then I used some very thin boards from Lowe’s (they are called craft boards) that I stained dark walnut by Minwax (one of my favorite colors):

 

The boards were more than I planned to spend but I needed a very specific thickness and they also had to be decent, stainable wood.

I put a little bit of glue down on the luan and then laid the craft boards down:

And nailed them in as well:

I took the old tabletop with me to the hardware store so I was able to find a combination of boards that fit the top almost perfectly. These boards aren’t all the same size – two are the same, the other two are different sizes. It didn’t bother me and I actually like that they aren’t all the same:

I’m not thrilled with how that skinny board stained up – I used conditioner on all of them and that one doesn’t look as good as the others. But it looks rustic…that’s what I’m going with for anyway. 

If it bugs me I’ll replace it. Or live with it. :)

The top is super smooth – I stood back when I was done and was SO happy with how it turned out:

I LOVE it:

The sectional will be moved soon so ignore the rug placement and all – this will get flipped to face the fireplace when the TV can be moved over. Hoping this week!

WHEELS:

I’m bugged out by the wax this time – this wax has done this the past two times I’ve used it. It gets blotchy and doesn’t dry well in some spots. Most of it looks great – it’s just certain areas. Usually this happens when you use too much, but I wiped this sucker well so I know it’s not that.

It’s frustrating because I’m going to have to sand down a couple spots and do another coat of paint and wax to correct it. But I LOVE the look – the dark wood combined with the gray is luscious. So it will be worth it. :)

There were a few issues along the way but I ended up with a coffee table I love in just the right size. The table was $20 and I spent about $25 on wood (those smaller pieces get expensive!) – not bad at all! Don’t overlook those pieces that are a mess – they can be turned into beauties!

Have you made over any messes lately?