Happy Thursday my dear friends! I just finished a fun little something this afternoon that I’m anxious to show off…
(Don’t worry – this is the before picture!)
I picked up this table months ago and as I tend to do, left it neglected in a far corner of the house until I felt the creative motivation to actually do something with it. I finally felt the motivation yesterday, and with a very vague idea in mind, went to work.
It’s difficult to tell the exact size of the table from the picture above, but it’s actually quite odd – too small to be an end table and too big and bulky to be a plant stand or miscellaneous corner table….what in the world was I to do with it?
The line detail on the top of the table gave me the idea to transform this awkward little thing into a checker board table. Without a color scheme in mind, I started off by painting the entire piece in white – my go-to color when I’m at a loss and without a strategy. I suppose it just gives me that blank canvas I need to get the creative juices (hopefully) flowing!
Once the piece was nice and white, I measured the top, calculated the measurements so my checker board would be evenly centered (3” from each edge), and then created a 12×12 square in the center, marking each individual square at 1.5”. I then taped away using Frog Tape – my first time using this particular brand and it really does work far better than the usual blue painter’s tape. I highly recommend!
Once the piece was taped to my liking, I decided to paint one set of squares in Annie Sloan’s “Louis Blue” while leaving the other set white, which also meant that I would have to repaint the current white border in a contrasting color…
So with a bit more taping, re-taping, and more than a few disgruntled moments, I finished painting all of the squares to my liking and created a custom light grey for the border, which I also used to paint the rest of the table.
After a bit of distressing and detailing, I’m actually happy with the finished product!
The perfect little game table. Now I just need to find (or make) complementing checker pieces! Any ideas?
LINKED TO:
themodagecottage.wordpress.com 
I’ve seen the blue and clear glass “Stones” at the Dollar store. They are typically used for floral arrangements but they could go with your color scheme and are flat and round like tradional checker pieces.
Michelle, what a fabulous (and frugal) idea – thank you! I think I will head on over to Michael’s today to pick up a couple of bags to see how they work. I’ll keep you updated 🙂