My next project to help furnish my apartment was to upcycle this little coffee table. I had almost forgotten to take a before picture, so you see I had already begun sanding in one corner in the before picture. The coffee table was actually in pretty good shape. There was an abundance of scratches in the top, but none were to deep into the wood that a bit of sanding wouldn’t remove.
In the last post I talked about the challenges of working on these projects inside the little apartment. This project wasn’t a s big, the problem was it was going to take more sanding then the buffet, and that means a noisy electric sander humming, which in an apartment can sound like a jack-hammer to your neighbors.
As you can see from the pictures, this project was pretty simple. There were actually a minimal amount of steps. I sanded off the old stain and finish. I have to say, I do love the smell of sawdust and that was a good thing, because I had sawdust everywhere. After I sanded the table was ready for stain and paint. But before I started I wanted to try to clean up the brass (at least I think they are brass) end grates. Using a bucket, toothbrush (an old one), and Bar Tender’s Keeper (comet like metal cleaner) I cleaned the little grates the best I could, it did cleanup nicely, just didn’t turn out as shiny as I thought it would.
Because I wanted to protect the wood from getting stained black with the paint, if I had any drips, I went ahead and did the staining first. I loved the look of that cherry color! Its not to brown, not to red, and some of the grain can even turn a little golden. After the stain dried, I also put on a coat of lacquer and let that dry before painting the black.
After I painted the black, I added a few more coats of lacquer to get a good shine and try to protect the top from everyday life. My little apartment was starting to come to life, and the matching furniture made me happy. Just like the buffet, the coffee table worked perfectly for all my time in the apartment, but as we starting decorating our house, the black paint no longer went with our theme and colors. So I brought back out the sander, and sand paper. I still love the cherry top and shelf, but after a second upcycle, everything that was black is now white and is perfect right in front of the couch.
