DIY Day

DIY aka Do It Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land.

About a year ago I was helping a friend clean, paint and ready her new house so that her family could move in. Down in the basement, tucked in a dark dingy corner by the furnace was this handmade sofa table. Well, I use the word 'sofa table' loosely but it was a table. Painted, of all colors, 1970s mint green!

My friend glanced back at the table and said "oh, just toss that on the curbfor the garbage to pick up." Horrified, I told her I could not EVER throw out a piece of furnitue, no matter how rustic and beat up it was. So, I took it home stripped the ugly 70s paint off and spray painted the legs and sides black. But, now I was stuck. What to do with the top? Well, it sat on my porch for OVER a year because I truy couldn't figure out what to do with it. I kept thinking I wanted to do a mosaic table top.

Well one day my husband and I were cleaning out the shed and I found these old fence slats piled up in a corner and it got me thinking. Wow, these would make a great table top for my homeless table on the porch. So, I measured them and showed my husband how I wanted them and he started cutting. I then took them into the basement, lined them up and white washed them with pickling glaze.

We then lined them up on the table top and ued some Liquid Nails to glue them to the table. I then sprayed some polyurethane on them (I was really going for this rustic look but the reality was the slats were rough and giving off splinters so I needed something to seal them.), let it dry and it was done. I was SO excited at how it turned out! Could not wait to get it into the house. Ha, I brought it into the house and I couldn't find a spot where I liked it. I tried the eating area, two spots in the living room, the dining room, then back to the eating area in another spot is where it finally landed. So, next time you have some extra fence slats that you don't know what to do with, think outside the box!