Project File: 11.02.08:1
Object: White office table, 4′ round.

Problem: While only a couple of years old, our office table was covered in scratches and dinged up. The legs are good, the table is solid, but as a focal point in our office space it was not working. And, until we get our client room fully set up next year, it is also doubling as client meeting space – making it that much more urgent that this piece fits into our space properly.

Budget: As we already had a functional table, purchasing a new one as we’d been too hard on the old one was not an option. Therefore, little to no budget.

Project History:

Recently when Reilly and I were at one of the Croatian Cultural Centre Retro Fairs I came across an oversized book of old movie posters. While slightly water damaged, flipping through confirmed many gorgeous images from the 20s – 60s, all on nice big sheets of paper! Perfect! I knew immediately what I’d do with it. We’d talked about possibly decoupaging the table, but this confirmed this would be its fate.

Supplies:

movie posters, white glue, foam brush, shallow dish for water, scissors, brayer, acrylic sealer, fine sand paper – all items we had on hand

Method:

1 – Cut out each of the desired poster images (making some tough decisions over oposing sides of the page!)

2 – Scan in the cut pieces for later use in other projects. When you have material this good, don’t destroy it in the process!

3 – Working quickly and one sheet at a time, soak the pages in a dish of water for a few seconds to allow the image to relax. This eliminates potential wrinkles as everything dries.

4 – Once wet, I used a foam brush to brush both the back of the sheet of paper and the area of the table I would be positioning it on with diluted white glue (somewhere around 1 part water to 1-2 parts glue)

5 – Pieces in the middle of the table simply went down, pieces going over the corners were carefully creased to match the corner. The wet paper makes this part easier, too.

6 – Using the brayer I firmly flattened each image, squeezing any extra glue out the sides. I rolled the extra glue back over and around each image to ensure each page was fully soaked with adhesive.

7 – Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Let dry.

8 – When everything was finished and as I wanted it, I started to seal it. Working one coat at a time, I applied the acrylic topcoat with a brush, allowing 1-2 hours to dry between each coat. You can also sand with ultra fine sandpaper in between each for a smoother finish. So far I have 5 or 6 coats on my table, but will do more. 7-12 coats is likely the ideal number. We chose a glossy finish for ours and love that it is waterproof, looks great, will hide dings and scratches well, and easily repaired.

Here it is!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.