Secondhand Surplus

Sunday, May 19, 2013

A Table with Potential

Laminate coffee table

I found this coffee table at the thrift store this week and loved the lines of it, but wasn't impressed with the laminate top. The thrift store was have a 50% off cash and carry furniture sale, so I decided to spend the $15 and try to work some magic.
I had a coupon for 50% off at Joanns fabric, and even though they don't carry the highest grade foam, I was able to get 56'' of 24'' wide, 2'' foam for $25. I also purchased a nice think batting that was already on sale, so about $5 went into that.
Little helper
Also on the materials list was this nice gray wool army blanket that was thrifted from savers, for $5. This is the only picture I snapped of the blanket before it was put into use. This also explains why I have a hard time getting any projects done lately. There is always someone wanting to "help", and believe it or not, it always makes the project harder.
When using vintage material for a project it is always important to thoroughly examine the fabric. Wool army blanket are great for re purposing, but make sure there are no moth holes. The blanket I found was in amazing shape, no holes, no stains.
It was pretty easy after that. I just detached the laminate top, cut the foam to size using an electric knife, wrapped the foam with my batting and used a staple gun to attach. I then cut the wool blanket to size and then placed it on the foam and batting upside down, pinned the corners and the used my sewing machine to sew the corners that I had pinned.
Once the sewing was done, I flipped it right side out, stretched it back over the foam and stapled it in place.
There you go. A table with potential. In all this project cost about $55 to complete, and that is including the cost of the table. It was a easy project, that anyone could complete. It gave new life to this piece of furniture that had an undesirable laminate top, but beautiful Pearsall-esque walnut legs.