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.

Before / After

I found this little pair of stools next to a dumpster, grabbed them up, and then let them sit in my basement for a little while. I had already started webbing the pair of chairs, and was having a hard time finding enough webbing to finish that project, so even though I knew I wanted to re-webb these guys, I let them wait.

Well, I haven't finished my black chairs yet, but was getting the itch to do something with these. Hobby Lobby has cotton, 1 inch belt webbing in all sorts of colors, and spools that come in 25 yards. So, I decided to do black and white and keep the walnut wood tone. I wiped down the stools with walnut color restore-a-finish, and used steel upholstery tacks to tack down the webbing. Pretty easy project, and I love they way they turned out.


Both stools are marked in a couple different spots, but it isn't in English, and google translate was no help, so if anyone has any information on these please share, thanks.

I thought I was the only one

Scanning through Modern50.com this afternoon, I paused to look at the chandelier, and right there I noticed the bench. That's my bench.(except I like my hairpin legs better)But I thought I was the only one that had used old scaffolding for a great new bench, oh well.

Bench Press

Here are a few pictures of one of my new benches. I have wanted a slat bench and haven't been able to find one that I could afford, so this weekend when we found this old scaffolding for $5 we grabbed it and loaded it in the car.

I loved the worn weathered look of the wood, the drips of paint all over, and the fact that it was expandable. My husband said that his grandpa had a couple of these back in the day, and they were placed on the rungs between two ladders.

I started by sanding with fine grit sandpaper to remove the large flaky paint drips, and then finished with steel wool and Feed n' Wax, bees wax. I then purchased the hair pin legs at our local vintage store and pre-drilled holes and then used wood screws to attach the legs. I am pretty proud of my little bench, and the whole family loves it.
* I still need to take pictures of the cool bench I found in the alley, we are already using by the front door, and needless to say it has crap allover it right now.