DIY THURSDAY: DRUM TABLE REDO

Despite the dirt and grime, the broken drawer, the surface scratches, and the overall hideousness of this piece, I knew it had potential as soon as I saw it. I happily dished over the pocket change that made it mine, and went to work on it a few days later.

I rarely know exactly what I’m going to do with a piece of furniture when I begin. I simply wipe it down, start sanding it, and let the grain of the wood, angles, and grooves speak to me along the way. Of course, sometimes I don’t listen well enough, or at all, and the project ends up turning into a bit of a disaster! But these disasters, while sometimes time consuming, have always been recoverable – so far…

When I started sanding the top of this drum table (with an electric hand sander), I realized the wood was actually quite nice! At this point, I knew I wanted to fully sand the top down to its original state and leave it (mostly) as is from there.

Once I finished sanding the top, I starting painting the base with Annie Sloan’s chalk paint in Old White. Now, I’d be pretty darn surprised if you haven’t yet heard of this paint, but if you haven’t, it’s definitely a must have! Not only is it perfect for that old-world and distressed appearance, it is easy to use and requires no sanding or priming of the furniture beforehand! Yep, you heard me – you can slop it right on top of any old paint or veneer and viola! You’ve magically transformed that grimy piece of furniture.

After the white base coat, I knew I wanted to add a pop of color and depth to the piece. A vibrant, cornflower blue came to mind, but somehow my husband convinced me to go with a green. Here it is after one layer of Annie Sloan’s Antibes Green and a bit of hand-distressing with 180 grit sandpaper…

Eek! Hideous right?! Yeah, I should have gone with my gut…

With that said, I repainted the base with 2 layers of Old White, and then mixed a custom blue with Annie’s Louis Blue and Old White and painted 2 more layers…

A little better, eh? You may notice in the above picture the drawer laying next to the table. You may also notice this drawer is missing the back slat. To fix this, I simply purchased a small slat from Lowes, cut it down to size with my Dremel, and nailed the slat right into the slide slats. Piece of cake!

To darken the top very slightly, I added a layer of Annie Sloan’s dark wax directly to the wood to give it a light stain. I did this in very small increments, and quickly wiped on and even more quickly wiped off. Now, I ‘m not quite sure how kosher this actually is, as you’re technically supposed to put down a topcoat of clear wax before using the dark wax, but I like to experiment a little. The dark wax looked a little too dark to me, so I put down a coat of clear wax to pick up and remove some of that dark wax. Again, a quick wipe on and wipe off process. The top still wasn’t quite to my liking so I very, very lightly white-washed it with Old White, and removed most of the paint with a wet washcloth to leave only a light hint of white in the crevices. Much better!

FINALLY, I did another and very light coat of dark wax over the base, and finished with a final coat of clear wax. Here it is all done…!

What do you think?

PS….The bistro chairs you see were painted to match, but I’ll share that in another post!

PARTIES I HAVE LINKED TO: