Are you so tired of me talking about this table? I wrote an entire post about how we use this table just a few months ago.  We bought it for $40 about nine years ago.  That was back when lots of KMarts were going out of business.  It’s just your average inexpensive kitchen table that lots of us have had at one point or another.  The top used to be some kind of light wood but I painted it years ago.

This is my table’s reality.  Every surface in this house must earn its keep.

Surfaces are for working.  This was during tax season.  I’m our tax preparer.

Surfaces are for projects.

Over the years this table has taken a beating.

So much so that I had to find a way to hide it for the book signing party.  You didn’t think that was just a pretty table-cloth did you?  Oh no, that horribly, scratched up table top was a Lovely Limitation that forced me to get creative and the book page table covering was a great solution to an annoying problem that I didn’t want to deal with.

My table top needed painting.

Desperately.

So I texted Angela and she let me borrow three colors of her Chalk Paint so I could figure out the best match.  I really liked the color I had on the table and I didn’t want to have to deal with a new color in our family room.  Lucky for me, Duck Egg was really close to the color I had.

So I painted the top with chalk paint. I’m not sure if that’s the best use for chalk paint but, it worked for me.  In certain lights you can see the brush strokes, which I kind of like.

And a year and a half ago I painted our big table with flat paint and it’s held up great.  I like to think that the secret is in wipe on poly that I use to seal it.  I LOVE that stuff.  I learned that trick from Mandi from Altar’d.  She’s the furniture painting whisperer and has an entire ebook full of secrets if you need someone to hold your hand. Click here to visit Altar’d Furniture {in a new window} and to get your ebook if you feel like you need more guidance when it comes to painting furniture, I don’t claim to be the pro {but I am an affiliate for her ebook which means I get a percentage of the sales if anyone buys–you can be an affiliate too}.

See? Doesn’t the table look so much better now that it’s painted?

Here’s a vanity shot.

And that’s the cold, dirty truth of the vanity shot.  Because it’s slipcover washing day.