Family Room Makeover: Part 1

I've been strongly hinting/begging/pushing for us to look at redecorating our family room and kitchen. The colors weren't doing much for me each day and well, really, there was very little "re" to this decorating thing because we had very few things on walls and no tables to put any decorations on.

So we had a budget meeting and Mike went downstairs. He came up after some serious thinking and said, "Okay...you can go shopping this weekend for what you want. Write down how much you want and we can negotiate." What?? No. I said he could just tell me what I can have. So, he took a big breath and said, "You can have $50."

I about started crying. Then he about started laughing and told me my real amount. So, I called mom and Tracy and asked for help.

First we decided to shop in my parents' basement. They just moved and have a lot of stuff they are looking to get rid of. Tracy and I picked out lamps to repaint and other decorations we thought would look good if repainted. We had no problem repainting things we didn't already own. Then my mom said they were looking at getting new tables for their family room and would I like the old ones? Huh. Yep. We thought those would look great repainted too.

So, mom and I hauled the tables to my house and went shopping at Homegoods. We bought tons of things for a color scheme I thought would work. And when I got home Mike even liked all the choices, but he reminded me he wanted no part in this stuff.

I set to work the next weekend refinishing the tables. Here's the before:

They really weren't bad as they were but I sanded and spray painted them black. Here's what I learned:

1. Spray painting five tables takes a lot out of your hands. I started using my right hand. Moved to my left, and by the end I could barely hold the can and press down simultaneously with both thumbs my muscles were hurting so much. The next day I hardly had muscle strength to write in my students' books.

2. Do not do this barefoot. I spray painted in our garage. You don't really notice how much spray actually doesn't go anywhere near the table but instead lands on the floor. At least I don't. By the end of day one I had a crust layer of black paint that no amount of paint thinner was going to get off. In fact, I still have some on my feet.

3. You should probably wear a mask like those home shows suggest. I might have been a little high by the end of the day.

Anyway - some more painting and some more sanding later I had the finished product waiting to go into the family room. This took me about 7 hours over three days. I was so excited to finally have tables in our family room I could hardly stand it. I wiped off the bottoms to make sure there was no paint leftover and carried in what I could. Then I went downstairs and asked Mike to finish his meeting quickly because I had tables to move. That didn't hold much weight but was worth a shot. He came upstairs later and helped me move the last table.

Then we went to straighten some tables and he noticed there were black circles on the floor. He just looked at me and I started to hyperventilate. I ran to get the Dustbuster and luckily it was all dried, dusty paint and everything came out. Whew.

Here's the same table finished:

They all look roughly (ha!) the same as this one. That last sanding is actually kind of cathartic - especially if you have some issues to work out. It was kind of fun to just attack the table wherever and sand away places knowing it didn't really matter if it chipped...that was the whole point. Destroy it before the kids do!

So, there's step one for our room. I'll fill in the rest this weekend.