About three and a half years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Ikea when we moved into our first apartment. We were on a budget so we picked up the cheapest bits of furniture that we could find. One of these items was a black lack coffee table. It was good looking enough and it served us well. It still is in good condition, except that it has a lot of cosmetic scratches and dings on the main level, mostly from cats walking across it when we're not looking. The scratches are pretty minor but they still bother me when I see them. I've been wanting to revamp the table for a while now. Paint was one idea, but what I really wanted was to give the table a more rustic, country feel. The idea that ending up winning was to recreate the top level into a wooden plank surface.
My husband and I measured the table and found the dimensions: length - 35.5 in, width - 21.75 in. We drove to the nearest Lowe's and found the wooden planks section. They have a really great selection, but what I had in mind were relatively thin boards that were a bit wide, but not too wide. I ended up finding 1x4x3 boards that were already sanded down and the perfect length for our table at home. Luckily we remembered to bring the tape measure, because when we measured the width, they actually ended up being 3.5 inches wide. This meant we needed seven boards. However, with seven boards, there would be a lot of excess wood hanging off. We decided to go with six bigger boards and grabbed a small one as well, with the same thickness, but a width of 1.5 inches. With the smallest board in the middle of the table, the table would still look manicured when finished. The bigger boards were $3.47 each and the smaller one was $1.97.
Next, we went to the wood stain section and chose a color. I wanted it to look rustic but not too light since the table is already black. I chose Kona (Rust-Oleum Wood Stain) which is a nice dark shade. We weren't sure how much we needed so we got the bigger tub which was $8.98. (We ended up not needing this much at all!) We picked up two foam brushes for $0.98 each and a 8 oz bottle of Gorilla wood glue which was $3.98. So, all in all, we spent $39.98, which I think, compared to going out and buying a whole new coffee table with a similar look, is a steal! Especially since we overspent for the stain - this project could be done with $30!
We got home and brought our material out into the backyard and got to work. We stained one side of the planks and waited about two hours before staining the other side and all the edges. The main issue we ran into was that it seemed as if the planks took forever to dry. I had to wait about sixteen hours for them to completely dry (the next day). I'm pretty sure this was because we started late in the day, about five o clock in November, so there wasn't much sun time and the temperature outside was VERY cold. The tub of the stain said it should take one hour to dry so I'm guessing it was nature that gypped us of a super quick project. Other, than that, everything went smoothly. I decided to only use one coat because I didn't want the planks to look too even or too "perfect". I love how they turned out!
When fully dried, I brought the planks inside, covered the table with wood glue, and placed the planks on top. They aren't completely flat to the point where I didn't need to push down on them to get a good sealing, so I needed to put some weight on top - books worked great for this! After about nine hours, I checked to make sure the planks were fully connected and they were so I removed the weight, and now my table is ready to use! I am so excited that our table now looks cleaner, but also more rustic, and it only took a day, a night and forty bucks!