End Table Makeover

I mentioned in my last post that decorating in an apartment can be tricky.  The main piece of furniture in our living room is a red futon.  Red isn't my favorite color on the spectrum, but I still like it.  This futon is comfy, adds a nice pop of color, and doubles as a guest bed. 

As you can see, the color scheme in the living room of our old apartment was red, black, and gray with awkward bits of brown.  I know, I know, brown and black... nooooo.  But sometimes it happens.  The black couch at the bottom of the above picture was inherited from an old roommate who inherited it from a relative.  It was originally a greenish plaid, but my roommate did a mock-slipcover job with a couple black sheets.  After I inherited it, I kept the black, as it worked pretty well with the red couch.  But when we moved into our new apartment we definitely couldn't fit two couches in our living room, so we passed the black couch on to someone else.  Our new apartment living room did require an end table, however.

Enter the yellow end table.  I believe my mom picked up this up from a thrift store back when I was a teenager and we were redecorating my bedroom.  The colors in my room were lavender and a soft yellow, so my mom painted the table yellow and white to match my room.  Somehow this end table followed me to college, and up until recently remained yellow and white.  However, as you may recall, my futon is red.  And this table is yellow.  Ewwww.  Just not a great color combination.  I didn't even want to take a picture of them together because it was so awfully ugly.  Thus, I knew a fresh coat of paint was absolutely necessary.  I wasn't sure what color to paint it until I remembered this picture I'd pinned on Pinterest a few months ago.

Normally I would shy away from red, blue, and white since it just seems too patriotically cliche, but red and white with powder blue is a totally different look.  I liked it, so I decided to go with a powder blue for the end table.  Then there was the paint issue.  Spray paint is easy and cheap, but I have no appropriate location to spray said paint.  So that leaves brush-applied paint.  I knew I wouldn't need a whole gallon of paint.  So I perused the Home Depot and Lowe's websites for paint in a smaller size.  I saw on the Lowe's website that Valspar does pre-mixed color samples in half-pints for $3.  It appeared that the color selection kind of depended on the store and the day, so I went to Lowe's crossing my fingers for a powder blue.

 

Cha ching!  Valspar also does a half-pint of paint that you can get in any color, but I think it was closer to $5.  So if you've got a small project that won't take much paint, check out the samples first because they cost less.  I also picked up a three-pack of paint brushes from the dollar store.  So it cost me about $4 total to paint this table.

Tadaa!  Much more red-futon-friendly.  And I hardly made a dent in that jar of paint.  And I painted two coats!  I'm trying to decide what else I want to paint blue.  I've been wanting to paint our kitchen chairs, but I also have a little table that I'm keeping our microwave on that could use some tender love, but I also want to get a bench to put by the door to create a launch/landing pad and maybe that will need some paint.  Decisions, decisions.

I had a Bob Ross moment while I was painting.  I initially planned to paint the entire table blue, but then I happened to casually run the paint brush along the white circle trim and fell in love with the effect, so I didn't bother filling in the white between the circles.  It adds a little bit of interest to the table and makes the unique trim stand out.  As Bob Ross always said, "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents."  It wasn't exactly a mistake to paint the trim, but I'd definitely call it a happy little accident.