Teeny Tiny Tea Table

My DIY projects are being completed at a record pace this month, knowing that Thanksgiving dinner for twenty is fast approaching and our Vintage Thymes Monthly Market will be the following weekend! One of this week’s projects was refurbishing a cute little side table.

The original finish was a shiny scratched shellac with large milky stains on the top over a dark mahogany wood. After several unsuccessful attempts to remove the stains, I made the decision to paint and antique it instead. Since I wanted to show off the pretty delicate floral border, I decided to go with two coats of Annie Sloan French Linen for the base and a specialty deeper gray color that I created. (I’m calling it CDH Parisian Gray : ) I have been mixing my own colors and creating a chalk-like paint using a recipe I recently discovered online. LOVE it. Blog for another day.

For the finishes, I used some Martha Stewart products I discovered in a 50% off mark down bin at Michaels. Crackle Effect for the center, Antique Tintable Glaze for the contrast and a Satin Acrylic Finish. 

Here is the How-To:

1. Cleaned the table and remove cobwebs and dust (it was in the barn…).

2. Painted the base coat with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. The beauty of ASCP is that you don’t need to prep or prime anything. Just paint and go. Two coats. 3. Sanded the edges to give the table a more rustic appearance. (You can skip this step if you want it to be a bit more refined : )

4. I had left the middle circle untouched, thinking that I would just add the crackle medium and then paint over that to allow the dark wood to show through. (For more info on using crackling medium, check out my Big Rack Attack Towel Rack tutorial)

FAIL. The crackling medium dried, and when I painted over it for the contrast, it looked fine.

Until I started to add the glaze. What a mess. All of the paint started coming off with the rag! Apparently the crackle medium did not adhere to the unprepped and shellacked inner circle. So I scraped it off,

cleaned it well, sanded it down,

painted it with my CDH Parisian gray,

crackle glazed and repainted that inner circle again, allowed to dry thoroughly,

then proceeded on to the next step.

5. Mixed the Antique Effects Glaze with my darker gray paint.

Remember, the more paint you use, the darker the glaze effect will be, so just use a small amount of paint. Paint it on, wipe it off with a damp rag. Do one section at a time, as this product dries pretty quickly and you want it to be blended smoothly and not leave streaky lines.

I started out with a fairly dark mixture of paint and glaze, then added more glaze to lighten up as I went on. The great part about this product is that it is water based, so just taking a damp rag to it removed the excess perfectly. You can see how the glaze enhances not only the crackling effect in the center, but also the medallion of flowers along the border. So country pretty!

6. Allowed to dry, then added the Martha Stewart Satin Finish for protection. Done. Overall, I give the Martha Stewart products two thumbs up! They go on smoothly (the crackle fiasco was my bad, not Martha’s), clean up with soap and water, are essentially odorless and a little goes a very long way, so it’s inexpensive as well. But the refurbishing of this little table cost me a lot of time. Good thing Coach got it for FREE-99!!

7. So, where could you use a Teeny Tiny Tea Table? How about next to a pretty pink victorian rocking chair in the Parisian-inspired guest room?

OK, I am off to decoupage the world! Or, at the very least, some more stars… Have a super Sunday everyone, and GO PATS! Susan