Coral and Gray Dipped Side Table {DIY}

Happy Monday to you! I hope y'all had wonderful weekends. We spent a good deal of our time cleaning out our closets (ack!), shuffling some of our under-bed storage, and compiling a somewhat embarrassingly large donation pile. If I want to see that particular area of our apartment ever again, I'll have to take a nice little trip to Goodwill in the very near future.

I did set aside a little bit of time yesterday to do a quick paint project though (as you saw in the title and photo at the top of the post). I've been enamored with the "dipped" paint look for awhile now, and after showing y'all the Sweet Beast's take on it for her entryway table on Friday, I decided to go for it.

This little side table was the perfect candidate for a dipped paint experiment. It was a $5 yard sale find from about 3 years ago that I had spruced up with a little white paint and a cute glass knob.

In it's original original form, it was natural maple with a coat of poly on it or something. The white was certainly an improvement over that in my book, but over the past few years it's accumulated some wear and tear - especially on the top.

Instead of throwing another coat of white paint on it, I figured I'd have a little fun with it in the form of some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in French Linen that I had on hand, and a sample pot of one of Valspar's spring colors in Sonora Rose. It's a nice bright coral - much brighter than I would usually choose!

(Side note: I got the sample pot for free thanks to a Lowe's coupon I pulled out of a Real Simple magazine a couple of months ago. Lucky for you, if you have this month's issue, there's another one in it! Take it to Lowe's and grab a sample of your favorite color or try out a new one.)

First, I painted the whole side table with two coats of chalk paint with my favorite Purdy paintbrush. I prefer two thinner coats to one thick one, even though the chalk paint can says you only need one coat.

And yep, I painted right in the middle of our living room over the comics section of the Sunday paper. It was pouring rain outside, so no balcony painting this time! Thankfully, chalk paint doesn't have any nasty-smelling chemicals in it, so painting inside isn't an issue.

Once the chalk paint dried (I only had to wait about 45 minutes - that stuff dries fast!), I used some Scotch Blue painter's tape to mark off the "dipped" paint line on the legs.

I arbitrarily chose to tape off each leg 5.25" from the bottom. I made sure to really press down the edge of the tape to seal it off so that the paint line would be nice and crisp.

Then I went to work with two coats of Sonora Rose on each leg. To really make sure I got a crisp line, I made sure to paint from the bottom edge of the tape down toward the bottom the leg. That way, I wasn't pushing any paint underneath the tape's edge and messing with the seal.

I let the paint dry for about 15 minutes, then pulled the tape off while it was still wet (another helpful strategy for a crisp paint line). It worked perfectly! Crisp, solid lines all around. Just look at those beautiful dipped legs!

Ah, the magic of paint. She's a real beauty now. Plain Jane to a knockout - ha! Here she is all dressed up next to our sofa.

And one more time before and after:

Just lovely!

Now here's the thing...she may not stick around our house. As much as I love this little side table, especially after her transformation, I don't really have a good home for her. She's living next to an upholstered chair in the living room for now, but she's too tall for it, and the rest of our living room furniture leans a little too traditional for her to fit in well with her punchy, modern style. I'm holding onto her for now, but she may end up on Craigslist soon. I'll let you know if that happens!

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