These are the kind of projects I just love from beginning to end! I spotted this little spindly legged table and thought it might have great potential, but it was looking a little like an ugly duckling! The legs were good but someone had nailed a painted wooden circle onto the top. I took a chance and hauled it home with me.
After I pulled off the added on top, I found it was actually a piece of old panelling that had been added for who knows what reason! I was excited to see the original top underneath was in pretty good shape except for little nail holes where the panelling had been nailed.
I filled in the nail holes with wood filler and lightly sanded the top. After two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Gray, I felt the table still looked a little plain and wasn't living up to its full potential (sorry, but in my enthusiasm I forgot to get a photo after the coats of paint). I remembered I had picked up an inexpensive stencil on impulse awhile back and thought it would work perfectly. I decided to just stencil across the center instead of over the entire top to keep the pattern from looking too "busy". The stencil I used is the Jacobean Floral pattern made by DecoArt and I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.
After the stencil paint dried, I very lightly sanded the design to smooth out any texture created by the stencil paint. I applied a coat of clear wax and then used fine sand paper to slightly distress around the edges.
After applying more clear wax over the distressed areas and buffing to a soft sheen, the ugly duckling was turned into a beautiful swan!
I'm going to have a hard time letting this one go!
