Vintage End Table

Remember these Vintage End Tables?  I bet you do!  If you didn’t grow up with one, chances are you know someone who did.  Which is exactly why, when a friend of mine saw this one at a thrift store, she was overcome with nostalgia and just had to buy it.  All it needed was a little TLC, which I was more than happy to give.

This end table had definitely seen it’s better days….I’m guessing somewhere back in the 70’s.  But despite the scuffs and scratches, it was still a sturdy little piece of furniture.

As always, I started by sanding it.  This allowed me to not only prep it for painting, but to get rid of all the scratches.  I used my electric sander for the flat surfaces, and then sanded the more ornate balusters and legs by hand.

With everything sanded and wiped clean, this vintage end table was ready for painting.  My friend asked me to paint it black to fit her Paris-themed guest bedroom.  But as I started painting, I had another idea.

Using a sprayer, I painted everything but the top tier of the table black.  (BTW, I recommend a satin finish when painting furniture.  It gives just the right amount of sheen, and unlike flat paint, allows for better cleaning.)  I then rolled an antique white onto the top tier of the table, and decided to add just a tiny bit more white to each of the balusters.

I remembered seeing these awesome vintage french designs on graphicsfairy.com and thought that was exactly what this end table needed.  So I hand painted the lettering from one of these old graphics onto the table top.  Because I did this by hand, it came out completely imperfect, but that’s exactly the look I wanted.

A quick coat of polyurethane over the whole thing, and this Vintage End Table is done.  It went from tired retro to fabulously French and trés chic!  Oooh la la!