Easy Herringbone Painted Table

I have a fun project to share with you today!  It involves taking something old and dingy and changing it into something new and bright. 

I had this old table that I just couldn't get rid of.  I received it along with several other things from my grandma when she was moving and getting rid of things that she didn't want.  Even though I took this table I have never really liked it.  I never know where to put it and I have not really had a vision for what I wanted it to look like so it usually gets shoved in a corner and hidden away.   I tried to sell this thing, give it away, craigslist - you name it - but nobody wanted it...poor side table.  From far away I guess it doesn't look too bad, but when you look closer you can see that it was gross - scuffed, banged up and flaking...it needed some TLC.

I know this might look complicated, but I promise it was easy and pretty quick.  I have been all about a chevron pattern lately and I love the little tweak on a traditional chevron pattern in the form of herringbone -so that was my inspiration for this little table.  I decided if I couldn't get rid of it then I would embrace it and try to bring back some life into it (and actually enjoy it being in my house).  I have seen lots of herringbone stencil tutorials (or just stencil tutorials in general) and it always seems pretty tedious and time consuming.  This really totally wasn't at all - I promise, I quite enjoyed this project. So here's is little journey and some steps for creating and painting your own herringbone pattern for your furniture.

First thing I had to do was to paint the table white. I painted two light coats of primer and then two coats of white - I used spray paint for all of that.  Then I decided to paint the legs yellow - I used a leftover yellow paint from out laundry room project.  I totally forgot to take pictures of all of those steps but you can imagine it, I have faith in you.

Ok up next is a little tutorial on how to make an easy herringbone pattern.  I didn't pre-measure anything.  I just eyeballed it and adjusted my tape until I liked the way it looked.  Once its all painted its really hard to tell any slight variations in the pattern so it didn't bother me to not measure.  

PS - I used 1" painters tape.

Make sure you have a handy helper like I did - very important, especially if you like to clean up little pieces of tape from all over your kitchen.  

Oh, also make sure you take a minute to press down on all of your tape to esure you have a nice clean paint line.

Here's the sealer I used.  I have never used this kind but its what I already owned so I went for it.  I was so afraid of it yellowing after it dried but it totally didn't.  Just make sure you use light coats.

Best part about this project - it was totally free.  I used supplies I already had on hand that was purchased for previous projects and left over!  I.love.this.table.

Seriously, this was easy.  Now I'm kind of ready to tackle a herringbone wall somewhere....hmmm, I'll keep you posted.

Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend!!!

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