Chevron Coffee Tables

This will be my first post in a long time. I've been wanting to add some pizzazz to our living room for quite some time and I knew the first step would be to re-finish the giant, broken coffee table that demanded so much attention but never delivered the "wow" factor. I decided a bold pattern would provide a focal point and act as an anchor for the rest of the rooms transformation. Chevrons are really popular right now so I decided to do them in dark brown and white. My friend Lauren came over and we decided to paint her coffee table as well, not caring one bit that we'd both have matching, sister tables.


Supplies:

1. belt sander
2. 100 grit belt for stripping
3. 250 grit belt for finishing and smoothing
4.2 quarts high-gloss, self priming  paint in different colors
5. high quality paint brushes in various sizes
6. FrogTape
7. 1 quart water-based Polyurethane in desired finish (I used satin but you can use a higher gloss if you want)
8. Martha Stewart Specialty Finish in Gold Pearl

Now, this chevron business was so much harder than I imagined it would be. Or maybe I just suck at math and measuring but be warned: This will require a fair amount of planning as far as where you chevrons will go and how wide they will be.

I started out by sanding my table with a belt sander. I originally thought the belt sander would strip the wood clean of all the previous paint and leave me with a perfectly bare table to work with. I was wrong. That may have to do with the fine grain of the sand paper we used. We probably needed a rougher grit to start. 

Next I, wiped the table down thoroughly removing any dust, then painted the whole table white, leaving the legs in their natural wood stain. This took  about 4 coats of paint before I achieved a nice, even cover.

Now it's time to map out your chevrons! I decided mine were going to be 4" thick and 12" from tip to tip. I made a grid of dots first by measuring the length and adding a dot every 4" along the very edge of the table and repeated on both edges. Then I measured the width, lining up the tape measure with the first set of 4" marks and then adding a dot at 12", then 24" then 36". Then I repeated this step throughout the length of the table. Then, to assure I was measuring properly, I drew in the lines of the chevron and  it looked pretty good!

Now you tape. Take caution when forming your peaks taking note where you will be painting and where you need to trim the tape to make perfect points. We used regular old blue painters tape but YOU should use FrogTape (its green!) because it prevents the paint from bleeding (it WILL bleed and you WILL have to go back and fix it) so use the green FrogTape! Paint a few, thin coats until you achieve full coverage ,then peel the tape off slowly

Don't forget to peel the tape off before the paint dries because it will rip the paint off the table and it will look horrible.


Wait for this to dry completely! Now you can stop here and apply your polyurethane sealer and be done with it! But I felt like I needed a bit more to make it look perfect. I had the idea when I came across this gold finish paint by Martha Stewart. I wanted to add a few more chevrons, much thinner, a bit wider and condensed into a 15" strip... here is what I came up with:

I followed the same procedure as above just adjusted my measurements. instead of 4" wide, these were only 1". The problem I ran into here was that I had to apply a lot of coats of the gold paint and it needed to dry pretty thoroughly before a new coat was applied. This means that when I went to peel the tape off, the paint ripped!! ugh! So I found a box knife and scored the edges of the tape before peeling. Then I cleaned the table, applied 4 coats of polyurethane, let dry overnight and put it in the living room to admire!