I Finally Painted the Sofa Table

Remember how I was on a building blitz back before River was born? I built several pieces of furniture, but didn't paint or stain them. Now I'm finishing those projects.

I started with the sofa table that hides behind our couch. The lack of paint and stain wasn't super noticeable, but it's been bugging me. I've hit my second trimester energy surge (or more accurately, my I've-gotta-get-stuff-done-now-while-I-can phase) and decided to get busy.

I've been thinking about what I wanted to do with this table for awhile and in the end I decided to stain the top and paint the legs. I actually stained the whole thing first so that the stain would show under the paint if I decided to distress it.

I ended up layering stains as I tried to find a color I liked. I started with ebony, but it was too light, so I added some mahogany, but it was too red. At that point I went to Lowes and bought some kona, which is a nice dark brown. If I'd started with the kona, I wouldn't have needed to layer the stains, but I was trying to use what I had.

I also cut a piece of wood to fit the open space in the middle shelf of the table. I was storing the extra couch cushion there, but since we moved furniture around in the living room and put the chaise part of the couch in the basement, the table just looks a little odd with the open space. Since the table is positioned between a wall and the couch, it's not too visible, but someday it might be. I decided it was easier to fix it now, rather than later.

After the stain dried, I painted the lower portion of the table with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Aubusson blue, which is just such a gorgeous color. I did consider distressing the legs, but decided to just lightly sand all over to smooth out the paint. In the future I can distress more if I decide it needs it. After the light sanding, I waxed the lower part of the table with dark furniture wax, which slightly darkened the paint. I used clear wax on the top since I'm running low on dark wax (and have to order it online) and it wouldn't make a visible difference anyway because of how dark the stain is.

pre-waxing, love the color combo!

the blue looks a little brighter here than it does in real life, but overall it looks so much nicer than before

Just to remind you, here's what it looked like before:

I still haven't figured out how to take decent pictures in this corner of the living room, so this is the best I managed.

I managed a better picture on the other end, with the window behind me instead of in front of me. This is the picture that's closest to the true color. Isn't it pretty?

And back to the other end, now with the lamps and blankets and such.

This was a pretty easy project that didn't cost very much- I had everything on hand except the kona stain and the shelf piece (I think I cut a piece for it when I built it, then forgot that was what it was for and used it in another project- oops!). It looks so much nicer now and I love how it turned out!

And an idea of how it ties into the rest of the room, again with crappy lighting.