Adventures in Refinishing Old Furnature, Pt. 1

In 2013 when I first started to look for a place to rent for grad school, I found out that I needed a table and a desk for the place, but everything else was furnished. I also absolutely loved the idea of a bottle-cap table back in the early days of Pinterest when that was a new concept and something everyone wanted to create. I plotted my design and saved bottle caps for a long time before I could actually create a table like this one. My sister worked at a restaurant with a bar at the time and talked all the bartenders into saving me the remnants of their night. (Because of that I had hundreds of "old man beer" bottle caps to choose from and really had to choose my beverages carefully in order to get the other colors I wanted).  I was also recently of drinking age at the time. What

My mom and I found a table for $15 at an interesting resale shop in my home town. Looking back I wish I would've purchased a less "unique" table and something that was actual solid wood. The paint doesn't stick very well to this laminate and there are only 3 areas for chairs because there are three legs to this table. (Not the most helpful when my partner and I invite another couple over for dinner/game night... I end up on a stool crammed into a table leg).

First coat of paint in the mid July heat!

This was after I laid out my design and hand glued every single cap down (except the row on the bottom left). This was the worst and most painstaking part of the process.

Before the epoxy was added to the top, but all the caps were glued down.

The finished product! I specifically searched on Craig's list for funky old fashioned chairs to go with my unique table. The chair on the right was found in my parent's basement, an old project of my dad's that he actually re-cained. The other chair was $20, it wobbles a bit but I could not pass up that beautiful design in the back. One day I'll recover the seat so it's less old fashioned, but for right now it is perfect.

Overall, the project cost me: $15 for the table, $40 for two of the three chairs, $8 in paint, and $25ish for the epoxy I put on the top to fill in the cracks between the bottle caps. I loved this project despite my poor choice on time of year to work on the project... July heat is not the time to spend hours outside gluing!!  Now, the table has been moved to four different apartments and is a tad scuffed up (well loved is how I like to think of it).  It has been a conversation piece for everyone who walks into my place and sort of a showcase for my talent and design. One day I'll probably sell it and get a simple brown "grown-up table" as my partner likes to put it.  For now, every time he gripes about the shape or mentions getting a new one, I remind him of the sentimental value (that table got me through many an all-night project in grad school, dang it!) and the blood, sweat and tears put into the completion of the piece (well more sweat and some tears, less blood).