Well, it is been some time I wanted to try my hands on something creative. I have always been passionate about staging homes and trying some really different design ideas. I never had many chances to do that in my parent's home. I was busy schooling and didn't want to spend on trial and errors. I moved to US after my marriage and have stayed on 7 rental apartments across many states in the last 7 years! Well that was very nomadic. Honestly I enjoyed every move as I never wanted to stay long in any 1 place expect for my dream place! In every home I wanted to try many design ideas, for some reason I never did. First time I moved to a single home, I had enough space to try something.
My very first step to DIY was to add some colors into an old wooden side table we probably got for few $$ long back.
The table was too old and tired looking. I am not very fond of shades of wood and wanted the table to stand out in my living area. Turquoise is one of my favorite colors and decided to take a bold step. I got Valspar high gloss turquoise paint from Lowes for about $12. I should have bought much less quantity as you wont be using such colors very frequent. That was my first 'lessons learned'! I didnt want to do any sanding and ended up with a primer which do not require sanding. I got the guidelines from
http://icreatewithlove.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-new-green-storage-solution.html
Thanks Emily. I used the same Zinsser Primer and it did well. I had to put 2 coats after wiping the table clean.
I used:
1. Zinseer Primer - No sanding needed
2. Valspar High gloss Turquoise Paint
I gave 1-2 hrs for drying the primer but I don't think that much is required. I gave 3 coats of paint leaving 4-5 hrs between each coat. make sure to wash your brush thoroughly after each coat. I used the same brush for both primer and paint. Well being my first experience painting something I would give this a pass mark. It is not perfect as you could see some bleeding marks from the previous coat on the sides of the table. But not much noticeable.
I missed to take a picture of the old table, so I could not post 'before' and 'after' pictures. I have to admit that it got some minor scratches after I painted and not sure if I have to do something to protect my table top, like poly urethane coat? Maybe someone can advise..