A Little DIY on MLK Day

For the first time since I joined the working world, I got Martin Luther King Jr. Day off! It was a nice change of pace and who doesn't enjoy a 4-day week? I could have deep cleaned the house that day, but instead, I decided to do something fun. I have been wanting to tackle this DIY project for about a year, but I am bad at making decisions so I've always found a reason to put it off. Now that it's done, I wonder why I waited so long.

When we bought our house, it just so happened that my aunt and uncle were remodeling theirs. Their trash became our treasure, and we couldn't have been more thankful! If it weren't for them, we still might not have any furniture in our TV room. One of the things they gave us was this glass-top coffee table.

 

I love the piece because it provides a good place to display our wedding album and other things that we don't have shelf space for. However, the color of the wood really didn't match anything else in our house. Instead of getting rid of it, I decided to paint it. I wanted to go with red, but Kyle convinced me that black was a better choice. So we went to Lowe's and spent about $40 on paint, polyurethane, sand paper, new hardware, and green and yellow contact paper for the inside. The whole project took me about 6 hours, but the polyurethane took forever to dry, so we couldn't bring it back into the house until a few days later.

Here is a during photo.

The guy at Lowe's recommended spray paint, but they were out of the kind he told us to use, and I wasn't about to put it off now that I had finally convinced myself to do it. It turns out spray paint would have been a lot easier, especially on those legs. I guess I'll know for next time!  

This is the final product. What do you think? I'm pretty pleased with it and now I have an excuse to update the pillows in that room!