This arctic winter weather is making us all a bit stir crazy. When I was asked last week to lend a creative hand to a project, I jumped at the opportunity.
The Second Thought is a thrift store operated by Heritage Christian Services in East Rochester. Their profits go toward their mission efforts in Guatemala. When I need a break at work, I take a quick stroll downstairs to see what is new in the store. They have wonderful bargains and each day offers new treasures. Their prices are reasonable and I have purchased more than a few furniture items to rehab over the last year. On more than one occasion I have begged the manager to hire me to be the store's repurposer and bring in higher sales. Oh what fun that would be!!
Well last Friday she asked me to take this table home and work some magic. She offered no deadline and no parameters. Just make it pretty and bring it back. Anything I want??? Ohhh, this is gonna be fun!It was in rough shape for sure. I actually think it may have been a handmade table. I have since learned more about it's history. It was purchased at a garage sale in the early 70's and after a little one had two stitches-causing encounters with it the family relegated it to the attic for 20 years.
I immediately had ideas swirling in my head for the flat surface. I had been wanting to try my hand at some French Typography and this table was the perfect piece to experiment on. It was on the store floor for $5 so I figured it could only get better. First I sanded down the top to remove the finish and get a smooth surface to work on. Then I used a graphic from The Graphic Fairy. She has great tutorials on her site for transferring the graphics. I went with enlarging the image, printing it on copy paper and using graphite tracing paper. It took a bit of time but was not difficult. I was actually very impressed with how well the graphite paper worked. It left a sharp image behind that I then painted with some acrylic paint from Martha Stewart. Once the paint was dry I sanded it back a bit so it didn't look so freshly painted. Then I put two coats of Minwax's Antique Walnut Polyshades followed by two coats of paste wax. The rest of the table got a coat of Annie Sloan Old White paint, some distressing and a treatment of clear and dark wax. All the supplies I used were things I had on hand except for the graphite paper which was only a few dollars at Michaels.
Check her out now...
This was so fun to work on and Anna was so excited to see it brought back to life! It now has a $50 price tag and is waiting to go to a new home to enjoy for many more years. Let's just hope it won't be causing anyone any stitches in its future. I was tempted to buy it myself, it is the perfect size for our small living room. I hope it brings in a few more dollars for a good cause.
