Congradulations! It's definately not Wensday!*

New house with a yard = new projects galore! There are so many things that I am extremely thankful for right now: becoming a stay-at-home-mommy, seventy degree weather in February, a hubby with a shorter commute...

One of the things on this list is now having a yard and area to do projects in. I love me some good crafty projects! I can whip out my brand-spankin' new power saws (only to be used when the hubby's at home), spray paint my little heart out, sew like it's going out-of-style, and refurbish old furniture. Yay!

One of my first large projects since arriving in our new place was to find a table for our dine-in kitchen area. I now have a real dining room and separate eating area for messy meals. Fancy. Of course I was not about to go out and buy a new table. That's too easy and usually more than I want to spend, so Craigslist searching it was. After a three week search,  I finally found a table that I thought was right and not in need of too much work.

In my mind, I envisioned a cute little pedestal table. I am a big fan of round tables. I don't think I've ever owned a rectangular or square table. I found a nice, white, pedestal table from C&B. The ad mentioned it needed to be refinished on top and I was up for the challenge. 

I picked it up in the evening because that allows more room in the car since the little one can stay at home with daddy. I saw it, noticed it needed work, and then brought it home. The next morning I realized it was in worse shape than the ad mentioned; bad Craigslisters. Don't lie, please. The previous owners had attempted to paint the top before, but from what I could tell, they had not sanded, primed, or used the correct paint. Oh, and they also didn't paint the leaf it comes with. Bad. 

{i immediately started started working}

{note gashes in tabletop}

{eek. more gashes and previous bad paint job}

My plan: sand, prime, and paint the top portion of the table using chalkboard paint. The hubby at first questioned the chalkboard paint. He's now convinced. It's a nice contrast to the white parts of the table, it hides some of the deeper gashes I couldn't sand out, and it's super fun. 

{second coat of primer. my cute assistant in the background}

{looking much better already}

{first coat of chalkboard paint}

I ended up doing two coats using a nice angled brush and then three coats using a small foam roller. 

Tonight, after waiting over a day for the paint to really dry, the hubby and I tested out the table after dinner. 

We love it. We had lots of fun talking and drawing once our plates were put away and we're looking forward to when Amélie will want to contribute to the artwork. We've also decided that any time we draw on it after dinner we're going to date it, take a picture, and in a year we'll compile a little picture book. Another fun little project. Oh, and the mismatched chairs...I'm working on that. 

*During our after dinner conversation we started talking about words that are frequently misspelled. I've seen a lot of this as an English teacher! Congratulations, definitely, and Wednesday were the top three.