Coffee Table

Hi friends!

Here are some photos of our coffee table... this is what it looked like (minus the dings and scratches) when we bought it 6 years ago.  Mr Leota never liked it.  He called it the coffin table and told me I must never put flowers on it.  I complied. 

Ok, in all truth, this is what it looked like after I'd been sanding for 3 hours... please excuse my messy living room.  You'll observe the sander case in front of the sofa.  After endless hours of sanding by hand, my lovely friend Cherie came to my rescue with an electric sander.  Then Mike the builder came to my rescue by sanding the top for me.  He can hold the sander with one hand - I cannot.
This is it once the sanding was done...

Once I'd spent the best part of 2 days sanding it, I almost wanted to hiff it out the picture window.  But self-control prevailed!  The next step was much more fun...

A coat of very watered-down acrylic house paint... only used one test pot for the whole table.  It soaked in really nicely, so the woodgrain still showed through.  Mr Leota wanted me to leave it like that, but I couldn't help myself, I HAD to dry-brush it white.  You can see, in the above photo, I had already started.  I have no photos of it just grey.  Impatience - that's all I can put it down to.

Painting finished... I used a water-based enamel for the white paint. 
a) because I had it
b) our coffee table takes some hard knocks

Then I finished off with a light sand...

You'll have to wait for the big reveal... I haven't taken the finished pictures yet.  And yes, I finished it in January!  Bet you can't wait to see what I did to those drawer fronts...