Saturday, August 17, 2013

Compass Rose Table

I'm blogging from my phone again. I know it's crazy, but its easier to get to the photos I take with my phone this way. Oh yea, I put the big gun back away so you all ate stuck with cellphone photos again.

So here is the before photo of the table I decided to redo. 


We bought it new 10 years ago. Back then the girls would fight endlessly over who got to sit next to mom. Tired of the fighting every time we sat down to eat, we switched from a small rectangular table to this round one. Now both girls could sit next to me. 

That was 10 years ago, they don't fight over who sits by me anymore. Often times they invite friends over for dinner and we didn't have enough seating at the old round table. 


So I replaced it with an old rectangular claw foot drop leaf, I'll show it to you some day. Today we're talking about the round table. I tried to sell it as is, but no one was interested. So I decided I might as well paint it, if nothing else it will be a learning experience. 

So I stripped and sanded the top. 

Transferred on my graphic using a projector and marker.



Painted my graphics using painters tape on the straight line areas. 



Sanded and distressed the graphic. This is where I learned to never, ever use marker to draw your graphic in, it doesn't sand off as easily as paint.



Then I restrained the table right over the paint. 



I wanted the chairs to be the North, south, east, and west so I started on them next. I sanded them to give them a distressed look and painted on the letter. 



By itself it was fine but I didn't like the way it looked with the table.



I didn't like the white with it. Ok I could fix that. I sanded down all the chairs and painted them black, then added the graphic in white. Much better! 



I also put a letter on the back side if each chair.



So here they are all together with the table.





It was a fun project and I learned a lot. Like black paint collects dust like a magnate. If you paint straight out of a fast drying can of paint your paint will get a thick skin on it that will transfer lumps onto your project. Most importantly I learned I will never, ever paint black paint over curvy white objects again. Every time you think your done you find another white area! 




So there is my before and after of my compass rose table. 

Happy painting,

D.

5 comments:

  1. Nicely done! I think it looks awesome. You've inspired me to do the same with my old boring drop leaf table :) thx for posting this.

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  2. Any thoughts on how to do this without a projector?

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  3. Could you help me find the design you used?

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  4. Hi! Love your table and would like to reproduce on mine. Haven't been able to source the compass rose design. Could you provide link or info on where I could find this? Thank you so much!

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