How To Re-Do Your Coffee Table

Step 1. Find a coffee table to re-do. I happened to have this one just lying around my living room. It was kismet, I tell you.






Step 2. Research the dickens out of how to refinish a coffee table.

Step 3. Compile a long list of different products to use, methods to enact, prayers to chant.

Step 4. Throw out your research because it's all too confusing and decide to just wing it.

Step 5. Sand the freak out of the coffee table.

Step 6. Don't spray on a primer coat, even thought it was suggested.

Step 7. Spray on black satin paint in long, clumpy, uneven coats.

Step 8. Let dry in between coats and do step 7 a bunch more times.

Step 9. Let dry outside while you watch bugs land on it's shiny, wet surface, and get stuck.

Step 10. Remove the bugs.

Step 11. Sand the freak out of the coffee table, only this time, have your husband do it since he is much more mindful of the aesthetic qualities needed to give it an antiquey look, or you can try it yourself like I did, screw it up, and then turn it over to your husband. It's your funeral.

Step 12. Lug the coffee table, by yourself, onto your kitchen table.

Step 13. Mix a stain with some glaze. Don't measure anything, don't try to figure out why you're mixing the two products, just do it because someone else's blog said that's what you're supposed to do.

Step 14. Slop the stain/glaze mixture unevenly over the entire table, and then just as unevenly and sloppily, wipe it off with a rag.

Step 15. Make a HUGE mess.






Step 16. Decide you'll be needing to throw this bowl out after your done.







Step 17. Kinda start to dig the way it looks.







Step 18. Complete one of the messiest, stain producing activities ever invented, without changing out of the brand new, Ann Taylor pajamas your husband purchased for you for Christmas because you just couldn't be bothered with walking the 15 feet to your bedroom to change into something more practical. You know, because lugging a coffee table 5 feet into the air by yourself is cake, but moving your arms and legs around to change your clothes just all seems like too much.







Step 19. Let dry outside while you watch bugs land onto it's shiny, wet surface, and get stuck.

Step 20. Remove the bugs.

Step 21. Haul it inside, plop your feet on it, and thrill yourself to bits that you just changed the entire look of your previously fugly coffee table.

Step 22. Look at the back of your shoes and notice they're smudged with black.

Step 23. Review your thrown out list to see what the problem may be.

Step 24. Drive to Home Depot (the one you should own by now with all the freakin money you've spent in there) and purchase a spray poly top coat.

Step 25. Spray on a poly top coat in long, clumpy, uneven coats.

Step 26. Let dry in between coats and do step #25 a bunch more times.

Step 27. Let dry outside while you watch bugs land onto it's shiny, wet surface, and get stuck.

Step 28. Remove the bugs.

Step 29. Bring it in your house, take a picture, start the blog post for it, and publish it 4 months later.







That's it. You too can re-do your coffee table in 29 easy steps. Clear as mud?