Shabby Chic Coffee Table Makeover

Tova Pearl
by Tova Pearl
5 Materials
$35
2 Days
Easy
A lovely couple who lives near me threw the most beautiful and dilapidated old French dictionary into the trash a couple weeks ago - and I just knew I needed to repurpose it for something special. I had this old beaten up coffee table that needed a refresh, and I decided to use the dictionary to do it. Here's a step by step video that I made of the process:
Before I started, the table was water-stained and gross, and it had a worn-out honey oak veneer. As prep, I did a little bit of light sanding just to clean it up and rough up the surface so the chalk paint would stick.
First, I painted the table a dark grey with rustoleum chalk paint. This took about two coats to get a good cover.
I then used mod podge to cover the edge boards of the table with pages from the old dictionary. This was the most fun part :-) It went quickly because - as you can see in the photo - I had laid out the pages in a row in the order I wanted before gluing them down next to each other, one by one.
I then used a sealer over the whole table for durability, which unfortunately darkened the color a little too much for my taste. No matter, though - I just did one more coat of chalk paint over it, and the layered effect turned out quite nice.
I distressed the edges just a little bit with sandpaper.
And here's the after - I love the end result. I hope you'll be inspired to try your own!
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