The Ikea Lack end table, already the subject of many a makeover (aka "hack"), but here is one more for the pile. I found this free table in a discarded furniture pile, a few chips and scuffs, but in relatively good shape for something made of particle board.
Originally I thought about painting the table, but then I remembered that painting is messy and I'm less than enthusiastic about cleaning up from painting. So, no to painting. Then I thought about covering the table with marbleized paper and securing it using modge podge. Then, again, I remembered that using modge podge is pretty much like painting and that I'm still lazy when it comes to furniture crafting . So how to transform this boring and too dark end table into something decentish?
One night in design blog land I read about people covering tables with contact paper, ding! Easier than painting, and all the fun of giant stickers. In the name of thrift I decided against purchasing the beautiful and expensive faux marble paper that cost 5x more than the original table, and went with one of the options available at the local hardware store.
Covering the table took about 1.5 hours since I was moving slowly and trying not to bang things around. I used almost the entire 9 foot roll to cover the table (21x21 inches square on top) and the 4 legs. I also added the green felt floor protectors to the bottom of each leg. Stickers on top of stickers.
Below is the partial reveal of the finished product.
I actually think the trellis pattern is nice, interesting but not too crazy. I selected it because it reminded me of furniture with bone inlay or interesting painted designs. Some examples are shown below. If you close one eye and squint with the other maybe my table will look as cool as these.
Pretend that I was thinking of all of those cool pieces above when I picked this design.
The finished product is shown below.
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| Ready to hold your stuff and things. |
The brighter stripe down the middle is not a figment of your imagination, it is where the two pieces of adhesive paper overlap. Luckily the paper is re-positionable, otherwise there would have been zero hope of coming close to matching the pattern.
It would be nicer if the paper wasn't so sheer, or if I was ambitious enough to do 2 layers and have the white be brighter, but I think $4.99 is enough of an investment for now. My plan is to use this as a coffee table (which we didn't have before), but it might get pressed into service holding plants on the balcony.
Happy freestyling!