What I love the most about IKEA furniture is that is so versatile that you can do anything you want from it, and still have a lot of room for improvement. And you don’t lose a fortune in case you don’t like how your projects ends, considering the fact that you won’t spend a fortune to buy this type of furniture. That’s why I love it, it’s affordable, versatile and still resistant at the same time.
The black LACK coffee table I bought from IKEA a while ago had some ugly stains that I could not remove. Those stains were a memory from a pizza dinner with my friends. The pizzas were too hot, we were too focused on eating it, the coffee table didn’t resist without staining. The final result of the evening was a happy bunch of folks, and a screwed coffee table.
But I put my creativity to work, bought some paint and varnish, and a few hours later here’s what I got! A piece of art with a very personal touch!
Drawing a contour is the first thing to do. Using a white wax crayon, I drew the arabesque so it would cover the ugly white stains that I wanted to hide. Later I discovered that the wax crayon, which was the easiest to get at the time, prevents the acrylic paint from stepping out of contour. Learning by doing, right?
Second, you have to fill in the contours with color. I used metallic acrylic paint in 3 different colors – blue grey, gold, and champagne. You can hardly see the difference while they are wet, but believe me that the final effect is worth all the money!
There is one more thing to keep in mind when crafting this project, and I have to admit I learned it the hard way. To cover the whole table with patterns, you need to start painting from the center to the margins, otherwise you would have to deal with an uncomfortable position that you keep for hours while working on the project.
10 minutes after applying the first coat of paint, which dried really quickly, here comes the second one. Oh, boy, I really enjoyed doing this!
A few hours later, clean the dust, and varnish the painted table to give it a polished look. Let the table dry for a few hours in a well ventilated place (beware of the flies or dust around it!), then apply a second coat of varnish.
Let it dry again and voilà! It looks pretty new and totally original.
I wonder how much would this coffee table costs if you buy it from one of those fancy furniture shows…
The post Coffee Table Facelift for Less than $15 saves stained LACK appeared first on IKEA Hackers.
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