The Same But Different

I took advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to get to a multi-day project. Our red coffee table clashed with our new red rug and it was hard to find an opportunity to have a few days in a row where we wouldn't miss it in the living room (relatively...).

So out onto the lawn on a tarp, propped up on containers so that I could get to the legs. A quick sand with a medium-fine grit, just to take the shine off.

Then after a quick wipe, it was time for paint! Safety Blue in Rustoleum's High Performance Professional Enamel. I didn't actually buy it for this project - we had some left over from painting the build-in shelves in the nursery.

One coat,

Two coats, three coats:

I followed drying instructions for minimal drying time (you have to spray within an hour or so or wait 48 hours, and no way were we going to make it that long without our table). The top surface was uneven, but no where near as bad as it was when I painted it red. I attribute this to a few things. 1) I was painting over paint and not over whatever was on it the first time. 2) This blue enamel went on much easier, so maybe there is something to this whole "professional" grade stuff. And 3) I cared a whole lot less and didn't dwell on imperfections.

I waited two days and then applied Slate Gray Minwax stain purchased a long time ago for my blue cedar chest. I tried a different technique (also associated with not caring) - I wiped it on and then off the top surface and then dripped it into the crevices of the side edges and legs.

Finally after more waiting, I sprayed the whole things with three thin coats of Minwax Polycrylic spray (one coat, then super-fine sand, then promptly decided that wasn't worth the effort and did coats two and three without sanding). Two more days to cure fully and back it went!

But we weren't idle in the living room while we waited. We took advantage of not having furniture on the rug (or at least not having *much* furniture on the rug) to finally get a rug pad down. First we let it air out in a different room - it stank of chemicals coming out of the packaging. But a day or two later, it was fine and ready to get put under the rug (we had more motivation now that the little one is experimenting with crawling and rolling and banging her head inelegantly against the floor on the way down...)

And so without further ado, here's the new and improved coffee table!

See how the gray is in the details? D actually thought I had painstakingly painted each line, but since stain is so liquidy, I just dripped it in and wiped off the rest.

Honestly I like this even better than the red - better spray paint and better stain technique. Let's hope that's the last time I had to paint this thing, though, because twice is definitely enough.