DIY End Table Makeover

I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but I only moved into my first apartment last September. Before that, I had spent 15 months in a house with my sister. Since she had been living there for awhile before I moved in, I never really decorated. I was in a small second bedroom that wasn't big enough to hold my queen size bed - not if I wanted to have anything else in the room, that is. So for the first couple months, I slept on two mattress pads folded up, until I saved enough money to purchase a futon. I had two end tables - one was my brother's, and I think the other one belonged to my parents. Eventually my sister gave me an old desk of hers and I bought a bookshelf. And that was it. That was all my furniture.

So you can imagine how exciting it's been to move into an apartment and decorate it with my roommate, who also happens to be my cousin. You've already seen the tray that I decorated for the living room and the book clock that I placed in the dining area. But lately I've been thinking that my bedroom furniture could be better. Here's a breakdown of what I have in the bedroom now:

1. Queen size bed - this thing is massive. I don't know what I was thinking when I picked it out. Oh, yes I do; I was thinking "SO GORGEOUS." And it is! But it's too big. I have a matching armoire, but it's also massive and so it can't actually fit in my room with the bed. Clearly, I was not thinking practically when I purchased these items.
2. Desk - The desk was damaged in the move, which the movers neglected to tell me. I'll probably buy a new one at some point, but for now it's fine as is.
3. Bookshelf - This was also damaged in the move, which the movers also neglected to tell me! A month or two after I moved in, the bookshelf actually snapped in half, with the bottom half breaking and the top half falling off. Luckily, it's right next to one of the closets, and the door was open, which caught the top part. I kept the top part.
4. Two end tables - one from my brother and one from my parents. The one from my brother is plain brown wood, with two shelves. The one from my parents has a nice little design and a tiny drawer.

The other day I was looking at the end tables and I thought, "Wow, I hate these things." So I decided to remake them. I started with the one that has only shelves and plain wood.

You see how scratched up it is? I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.

I really wanted to do this right, so the first thing I did was sand the top down until it was perfectly smooth.

Next, I painted it white, with Behr Premium Plus Ultra Primer & Paint. For the life of me, I cannot remember what color white I chose, so I'll check that when I get home. I gave the table two coats.

Already looking much better!

I actually did this over the course of two nights, because I started late at night, and I didn't fancy waiting for the second coat to dry so I could do the next part. So the next night I came back and flipped the table over to paint the bottom of the legs (no pictures for this, sorry). Then I taped off parts of the table in a crisscross manner. And I taped off the edges.

Supernatural is on the TV. Yay Dean!

Like all great ideas, I found this design on Pinterest - more specifically, from a great blog called Michelle's Pixie Dust.

Michelle painted her table with white spray paint and then acrylic green paint. I did mine with white interior paint and then Ceramcoat metallic gold acrylic paint. I really wanted to use green paint, but I had a hard time finding a shade I liked in a big bottle, and I didn't know how many little bottles I would need. When in doubt, always buy more than you'll need, right?

Yes, an empty soda cup is on the ground. My roommate's cat likes to play with them.

I did two coats, just like with the white paint. I waited about thirty minutes for the second coat to dry before stripping off the tape.

Ta-da!

Doesn't that look loads better? I don't know if you can tell, but there was some gold paint that made it underneath the tape, so I did a few touch-ups. Then I sprayed a clear finish over the table and let it dry some more. The next morning, I brought it into my room.

So much better!

Yes, that's the Twilight series on the bottom shelf. I do not like Twilight. I actually underlined all the passages that show an abusive relationship, Meyer's constant obsession with words like "chagrin," and other troublesome areas. I put the series on that shelf because there wasn't  enough room on the bookshelf for everything and I figured Twilight didn't deserve to be with the other books. But now the bookshelf is broken and the end table looks pretty, so I'm going to switch them out with Harry Potter.

And the lamp is new and I haven't decided how I'm going to improve it - I may not do anything with it. But it will need a light bulb eventually, I suppose. I haven't done anything with the second table yet, but it's definitely on my to-do list.

Anyway, to recap: