"I See a Red Door and..."

You might recognize this table from here.  With our little J chewing, climbing, pulling and drooling on everything the glass coffee table with little razor pieces of iron for feet had to go.

This coffee table is a sturdy, nice sized piece of furniture.



Practical it may be. Pretty it was not.

I need to qualify the above criticism by sharing the table's full life that M chronicled for me... First, purchased by M's mom at a garage sale.  Next used in the game room during M and Chris' high school years. And lastly, 7 or 8 odd years in a college house. Full of boys.

We might never know how many layers of pizza grease that is.



But, when Booger-bear went to sleep, I sanded off every icky layer.



M got the extension cords, set up all the lights, moved the table, got the sander ready, provided the mask and gloves, and set up the ipod.  But I turned on the sander (once M showed me where it was) and moved it back and forth.



After wiping the table clean, I applied the first coat of oil based enamel paint in black satin.  I used Rust-oleum brand paint from Home Depot, it worked great.  The oil based paint does smell horrible, but it's worth it. Otherwise I'd be re-painting this table in 6 months. I was optimistic about using only 1 coat, but as you can probably already see, 2 was necessary to get even color.



Quick blurry Roosta break...



Ok, Jump forward to Saturday, 24 hrs later... I sanded the top and applied the 2nd coat of paint. This sanding was really important since it evened out texture, color and removed brush strokes. Thanks to Whitney for this tip!

Jump forward again to Sunday, 24 hrs after the 2nd coat... I distressed the edges with sandpaper, wiped it clean, and applied a top coat of polyurethane (to prevent paint chipping, scratching and teeth marks). In hindsight I could have distressed the edges a bit more since the polyurethane deepened the exposed wood.  Next time.  I've already selected my next victim.



Finally, roughly 52 hrs from start... we had this in our living room.



You're next TV-drawer-thing.



I got a lot of tips, not to mention inspiration, from this great tutorial over at Clover Lane.  She got away with 1 coat. I, however, think a 2nd coat with sanding in between is likely needed in most cases.

Much thanks to M who is sweet enough to let me take credit.