This HUGE coffee / monopoly table came to me from a friend that was moving. She'd bought this thing at a garage sale many years earlier and had spray painted it brown in an effort to make it look better. She had two young boys at the time and they proceeded to use it hard over the next several years. By the time it came to me it had gum stuck on it, was filthy from lots of dirt getting into the crevices and had sticky liquid remnants inside the drawers. LOL! I loved it :) It was just my kind of rehab project.
I have no idea who built it, but it's obviously homemade. Someone took the time to paint the entire monopoly board on tiles! They did a decent job and the fact that it's so BIG (3 feet by 3 feet sqaure & 1.5 feet tall) it has a real presence about it. In fact, as she was giving things away on Craig's List that she wasn't taking in her move, everyone that walked into her house wanted it. Luckily I had laid claim to it years ago. :) I knew it was a big job, but at the time I didn't realize how big...
I have no idea who built it, but it's obviously homemade. Someone took the time to paint the entire monopoly board on tiles! They did a decent job and the fact that it's so BIG (3 feet by 3 feet sqaure & 1.5 feet tall) it has a real presence about it. In fact, as she was giving things away on Craig's List that she wasn't taking in her move, everyone that walked into her house wanted it. Luckily I had laid claim to it years ago. :) I knew it was a big job, but at the time I didn't realize how big...
I consulted with my favorite carpenter (my husband) and asked him how to proceed. He said "Take it apart".
O.O Yikes!
I have this fear on not being able to put things back together if I take them all apart. But he promised me we'd get it back together. So Fave Carpenter helped me dismantle it - and marked pieces as we took them off so that we'd known how it all went back together. I was left with this:
O.O Yikes!
I have this fear on not being able to put things back together if I take them all apart. But he promised me we'd get it back together. So Fave Carpenter helped me dismantle it - and marked pieces as we took them off so that we'd known how it all went back together. I was left with this:
That last picture I've started to sand the top already.
I have to tell you... it was scary taking that table apart. The top had been glued into place and without my husband I would never have gotten it off the base. I'm still new to how much manipulation wood can take, but FC (Fave Carpenter) has years of experience so he just ripped into it. :P I stood there with my blood pressure at maximum and holding my breath.
After it was all apart I started scrubbing. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. Did I mention that it had years of dirt on these tiles? Ugh. I think I used up several old toothbrushes that I had sitting around doing nothing. Yes. I scrubbed each tile with a toothbrush (and I can't remember how many different cleaners).
And then I started sanding. And sanding. And sanding. I had originally thought I'd sand and stain the whole thing, but the wood for the base was really cheap plywood and did not have much character after it was sanded. It was just flat and ugly. So I decided to stain only the drawer fronts and the top - which had been made with a nicer type of wood (no clue as to what kind, even FC had trouble telling) and paint the base instead.
This is where I learned that chalk paint does NOT work well in temperatures below 45 degrees. It was winter & cold, my shop has no heat, and the paint was thick and uncooperative. It ran, it globbed up, it looked like crap.
I painted it gray. Hated it. I painted it black. The paint had runs and streaks everywhere. I sanded it (practically off) then repainted it black. I got frustrated with the weather and left this poor half table, half painted until it warmed up. Every time I walked into the shop my heart sank. I started to feel like I'd never get it done...
I busied myself with other projects.
Then I had a stroke of genius that I'd paint a bunch of monopoly guys around the top. So I worked on that while waiting for winter to go away. This part I could do indoors.
I downloaded a ton of the Monopoly guy doing a bunch of different things and got to work doing the fun part.
I have to tell you... it was scary taking that table apart. The top had been glued into place and without my husband I would never have gotten it off the base. I'm still new to how much manipulation wood can take, but FC (Fave Carpenter) has years of experience so he just ripped into it. :P I stood there with my blood pressure at maximum and holding my breath.
After it was all apart I started scrubbing. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. Did I mention that it had years of dirt on these tiles? Ugh. I think I used up several old toothbrushes that I had sitting around doing nothing. Yes. I scrubbed each tile with a toothbrush (and I can't remember how many different cleaners).
And then I started sanding. And sanding. And sanding. I had originally thought I'd sand and stain the whole thing, but the wood for the base was really cheap plywood and did not have much character after it was sanded. It was just flat and ugly. So I decided to stain only the drawer fronts and the top - which had been made with a nicer type of wood (no clue as to what kind, even FC had trouble telling) and paint the base instead.
This is where I learned that chalk paint does NOT work well in temperatures below 45 degrees. It was winter & cold, my shop has no heat, and the paint was thick and uncooperative. It ran, it globbed up, it looked like crap.
I painted it gray. Hated it. I painted it black. The paint had runs and streaks everywhere. I sanded it (practically off) then repainted it black. I got frustrated with the weather and left this poor half table, half painted until it warmed up. Every time I walked into the shop my heart sank. I started to feel like I'd never get it done...
I busied myself with other projects.
Then I had a stroke of genius that I'd paint a bunch of monopoly guys around the top. So I worked on that while waiting for winter to go away. This part I could do indoors.
I downloaded a ton of the Monopoly guy doing a bunch of different things and got to work doing the fun part.
Are those cute or what? I used my Graphite Paper Transfer Method to get the images on the wood, then I used a basic acrylic art craft paint. Check out my Graphite Paper page for more info on how this is done.
Some of those details on the images were very tiny so I used a free standing magnifying glass (and also a head lamp type magnifying glass) to get them painted correctly. I worked at my kitchen table under bright light and was finished with this in about a week. I worked at it for a couple hours a day.
Had a blast! The graphic painting part is always my favorite part.
Not too long afterward (like a week) the weather warmed up some so I was able to stain the top and the drawers (and a coffee table I had been working on as well). I was happier than a woodpecker in a lumber yard. :)
Some of those details on the images were very tiny so I used a free standing magnifying glass (and also a head lamp type magnifying glass) to get them painted correctly. I worked at my kitchen table under bright light and was finished with this in about a week. I worked at it for a couple hours a day.
Had a blast! The graphic painting part is always my favorite part.
Not too long afterward (like a week) the weather warmed up some so I was able to stain the top and the drawers (and a coffee table I had been working on as well). I was happier than a woodpecker in a lumber yard. :)
Here's some closeups of the before and after staining process.
The 1st picture shows it unstained, the 2nd with one coat, the 3rd picture shows it with two coats of stain. The last photo is me getting ahead of myself. I was getting excited that it might actually get finished!
The 1st picture shows it unstained, the 2nd with one coat, the 3rd picture shows it with two coats of stain. The last photo is me getting ahead of myself. I was getting excited that it might actually get finished!
So at this point I had everything painted, stained and cleaned except the inside of the drawers were still that awful green felt. It was sticky and stained, and was not going to budge out of the drawer. I'm not sure what glue they used to put the original felt in but whoo boy was it a good one.
I decided to just cover the old felt with new felt. I went with a decent gray color which I found on the back wall of Joann's Fabrics. I thought it balanced well with the gray tiles on the top. The felt was inexpensive and I simply used a spray adhesive (from the craft store) to apply. Just a light spritz and I laid the fabric in, smoothed it out, and cut the excess with a box cutter knife.
I decided to just cover the old felt with new felt. I went with a decent gray color which I found on the back wall of Joann's Fabrics. I thought it balanced well with the gray tiles on the top. The felt was inexpensive and I simply used a spray adhesive (from the craft store) to apply. Just a light spritz and I laid the fabric in, smoothed it out, and cut the excess with a box cutter knife.
And finally FC helped me put it all back together. I love it!
It's so heavy and sturdy. It's the perfect coffee table for our downstairs game/ music room. The size of the drawers (3 ft X 3 ft) are awesome for storing all our monopoly games, cards, backgammon, poker chips...
It was a hard project but I learned so much, and I'm so thrilled with the end result, it was all worth it.
It's so heavy and sturdy. It's the perfect coffee table for our downstairs game/ music room. The size of the drawers (3 ft X 3 ft) are awesome for storing all our monopoly games, cards, backgammon, poker chips...
It was a hard project but I learned so much, and I'm so thrilled with the end result, it was all worth it.
One last look at the before after - side by side.
Hope you enjoyed the journey, please feel free to comment, repost or link it.