I have a crafty brain. Usually, it ends there, with an idea of what I could do, but not a lot of follow through. So when I told my husband I’d decided to re-vinyl a card table, he told me to buy a new one. I wasn’t surprised.
But once I got the idea for a sparkly black table top, it was hard to change that!
I’ve been using this card table as a second space in my office for a few months. It’s a place for my daughter to come and “work” with me, and I’m also using it more in the new house to do anything on the laptop. And its past life was as a table for parties, most recently to give away beer mugs at our last party before moving out of NY. It showed!
Current set up…mommy and daughter desk!
I bought some sparkly black vinyl on amazon (a yard would have done it…I bought 3!) and a glue gun (if you know me, you know I’m not a fan of glue guns. But I’m not a great fan of staple guns either) and only let it sit about a week before deciding to get to work! Sunday morning, feeling productive after a Saturday that wasn’t, I got to it before my daughter woke up.
Supplies!
It was a pretty easy process, so I didn’t photograph the steps, but if you want to refinish a similar table (quickly and easily!), here’s what I did…
1 – Take the top off the legs. This was something I double checked before buying the vinyl because I was worried about the ease of doing it. 16 screws, and it was separate.
2 – Cut the vinyl a bit larger than the table top. I went about 2″ extra, then trimmed some off after it was attached. Then round off your corners so you don’t have a ton of extra when you’re working with them.
3 – You could take the original covering off, but I didn’t. I was going for as easy as possible!
4 – Start gluing. I did a line of hot glue at the line that the staples were on the original covering. Half a side at a time, filling in if I noticed anything hadn’t adhered. I did opposite sides first so I could pull it taut.
5 – Glue down the corners. Mine aren’t hugely pretty, but they were easy and look fine from the top! I put some glue down and pulled the vinyl over it, letting it come up where it did while making sure as much as possible was glued down.
6 – Trim any excess.
7 – Reconnect the legs.
My daughter woke up while I reconnected them and was curious what was going on here. I gave her a little peek at the top and she LOVED it! A little sparkle goes a long way with her! And it feels so much more like a piece chosen for the office than a piece we had in the garage. I know it’s hard to tell the difference in my super pictures, but it’s amazing! Here’s a pic with the before and after…
Things I could have done that I didn’t…as I mentioned, removing the old covering, using a staple gun, spray painting the legs. All great, but all would have caused me to put this on hold longer! Something I may still do…cover the chair cushions as well (which was part of the reason I bought extra vinyl…also for mistakes!). But for now, this is good and we love it!
Allison Getting Fit 