From Bad to Worse...

but in a good way!

I bought this table a few years ago off of Craig's List to use on my back patio.  I painted it black right after I got it, and have had to touch it up several times.  It is under cover, but when the rain is especially hard or blowing the table does get wet.  It was starting to look a little tired again, and I decided that I was tired of fighting it!  I wanted to make it look distressed on purpose, and then any future nicks or peels would fit right in.

I used my handy palm sander and just went at it, hitting all of the edges and the legs.  The paint was peeling and loose around the bottom of the legs, so I really went around that area well.  Then, I picked a few spots with cracking paint on the top and made them more obvious, and added a few more worn places as well.  

After sanding, I wiped everything down and went over the whole table with Old English Scratch Cover.  Love that stuff!  It darkened up the bare wood and blended in some of the scuffs from the sander.  After letting that dry for a bit I sprayed the table with a few coats of polyurethane, you know, so that pretty finish wouldn't get messed up.  :)  Kidding.  I just wanted it to seal everything up so there weren't any patches of bare wood exposed to the elements.

While I was at it, I pulled a few side tables out of a storage closet.  I have several of these that I bought a few years ago on clearance at Hobby Lobby, but the others had fallen over one too many times and the tops were broken (that's a glass inset).  My original plan was to get a few pieces of tile cut to fit the top, but I had 2 tables that were still intact and decided to just give those a facelift.

I sprayed primer on the glass tops, lightly sanded, and gave the whole table a coat of Krylon Metallic gold paint.  Then, I used my stencil that didn't work out so well on an outdoor rug and tried again on the table top. 

I love how it turned out!  I will give those tops a few coats of poly as well.
  

I was still finishing these up when I photographed them-the paint was still a little wet!-so I'll let them cure a bit and get everything all styled up to show you the back patio all together...hopefully on Thursday.