So I’ve had this side table for 10 years since I got married. We picked out this asian inspired side table, coffee table and the dinning table as a set.

I wanted to paint it white as I was sick of the black brown colour it’s been for the last 10 years as our decor has changed.

This is the Chalk Paint I used. And the sponge brush. I found a pack of them at Michaels for $6.00. I think there was like 20 of them all different sizes too.

I had chalk paint left over from when I did the coffee table. I didn’t do too much research on it as co-workers were saying it’s so easy you just slap it on! It’s so thick it covers every thing and is so smooth. So that’s what I did. Slapped it on nice and thick. I hated it. I sanded and sanded and slapped more on and sanded and sanded. I still hated it. I hated that you could still see the brush strokes.

So before I tackled this side table I did some more research this time. But I didn’t find what I was looking for. So I tried something on my own.

I used a sponge brush and did super thin layers where the base colour was still visible and the paint almost dried on contact super thin coat. I did that multiple times till I reached the look I wanted and it was nice and coated and minimal sanding needed. I loved it. You could barely see any brush strokes from the sponge.

So first I only did the and got all the tedious work out of the way with the bars. Then worked my way up. I left the top in its original colour.

This is the only before picture I got as I started painting.

 

And this is what it looked like when it was done. I left the original hard ware as my husband said he liked them. I still might change them later on. So I left it like this for a about a week to see if I liked it. When my little 5 year old son came home from school and saw the table he said it looked really good with the black top. I didn’t even tell him that I painted it.

But after the week I wanted to try something that I’ve seen on Pinterest. I wanted a bit of a more rustic look on the top.

I saw someone using a stain on top of white paint and it looked awesome. So I wanted to try it.

 So I took that same chalk paint and and very roughly applied it to the surface very quickly again dried on contact as it was so thin. I used the sponge brush again but the flat side of it and was wiping it on instead of bruising it on to make sure it got into the grain of the wood. 

I let it sit about an hour or two. Then I started with the stain. As I was looking for a can of stain I saw these at Canadian Tire and wanted to give them a try. I can’t remember how much they were but I think they were between $12-15. So It wasn’t bad.

I didn’t take the whole cloth out though. I opened the flap and took a rag and dipped/pressed it in. I didn’t know how saturated the cloths were and didn’t want to have a thick layer of stain on the table. So with the dipped rag I quickly wiped over the white. It worked amazing!! I loved it!! And because I did a very light coat it dried right away and had items on the surface within the hour. 

Here is the finished top. I love it now with the white and the black showing through. I just have to clean up the little bits of white chalk paint that got in the grooves. 

Then I wanted to do the coffee table. But because I had it done all white and thick I don’t have the black showing though. But I’ll try taking some paint and again very quickly dry brushing over it to get the contrast.

Here’s the table all white…..

And here it is with the stain on it. For this I actually took the cloth out and used it on the table. I think I went through 3 of them.  I would’t buy them again unless it’s for smaller project. Which they would work great.  Then I saw that it matched my floor. I might bring up an old area rug that we have.

I might sand it down like I mentioned and do a dry brush of a darker colour. If I keep it. Im looking for a round coffee table.