I have a fun project to share with you today! It involves taking something old and dingy and changing it into something new and bright.
I had this old table that I just couldn't get rid of. I received it along with several other things from my grandma when she was moving and getting rid of things that she didn't want. Even though I took this table I have never really liked it. I never know where to put it and I have not really had a vision for what I wanted it to look like so it usually gets shoved in a corner and hidden away. I tried to sell this thing, give it away, craigslist - you name it - but nobody wanted it...poor side table. From far away I guess it doesn't look too bad, but when you look closer you can see that it was gross - scuffed, banged up and flaking...it needed some TLC.
I know this might look complicated, but I promise it was easy and pretty quick. I have been all about a chevron pattern lately and I love the little tweak on a traditional chevron pattern in the form of herringbone -so that was my inspiration for this little table. I decided if I couldn't get rid of it then I would embrace it and try to bring back some life into it (and actually enjoy it being in my house). I have seen lots of herringbone stencil tutorials (or just stencil tutorials in general) and it always seems pretty tedious and time consuming. This really totally wasn't at all - I promise, I quite enjoyed this project. So here's is little journey and some steps for creating and painting your own herringbone pattern for your furniture.
First thing I had to do was to paint the table white. I painted two light coats of primer and then two coats of white - I used spray paint for all of that. Then I decided to paint the legs yellow - I used a leftover yellow paint from out laundry room project. I totally forgot to take pictures of all of those steps but you can imagine it, I have faith in you.
Ok up next is a little tutorial on how to make an easy herringbone pattern. I didn't pre-measure anything. I just eyeballed it and adjusted my tape until I liked the way it looked. Once its all painted its really hard to tell any slight variations in the pattern so it didn't bother me to not measure.
PS - I used 1" painters tape.
Make sure you have a handy helper like I did - very important, especially if you like to clean up little pieces of tape from all over your kitchen.
Oh, also make sure you take a minute to press down on all of your tape to esure you have a nice clean paint line.
Here's the sealer I used. I have never used this kind but its what I already owned so I went for it. I was so afraid of it yellowing after it dried but it totally didn't. Just make sure you use light coats.
Best part about this project - it was totally free. I used supplies I already had on hand that was purchased for previous projects and left over! I.love.this.table.
Seriously, this was easy. Now I'm kind of ready to tackle a herringbone wall somewhere....hmmm, I'll keep you posted.
Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend!!!













