Every once in a while I get a piece of furniture that seems to resist my attempts to beautify it.  This ungrateful old sewing table was one of those pieces!  Many hours and dollars later I finally convinced her she wanted a new life.  🙌

One of my friends curb-shopped this piece for me. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited about it for several reasons, the biggest being what to do with it?  Without the weight of the sewing machine in it you can’t really use it with the lid open or it will tip.  It’s been sitting in my pile of misfits for almost a year so I finally decided to pull it out to see what I could do with it.  I broke all my own rules with this one.  I spent tons of time and way too much money but that’s what happens sometimes!

I removed the hardware on the inside where the sewing machine was once housed and since the hinged top would no longer be usable, I removed the hinges and glued the top to the base. I used wood putty to fill in the groove where I glued the lid down. The front panel pulled open like a cabinet door but that would also no longer serve any purpose so I removed those hinges and permanently attached the front panel with some L brackets and removed the original wood pulls.

When the wood filler had dried, I used clay molds to make a decorative trim around the top edge that I glued on, over the wood filler.  This was my first time using clay molds on furniture and I was surprised how easy it was.  I let them dry overnight.  There was some shrinkage which left little gaps where each piece of trim met so I did my best (🤭) to fill in those gaps with wood filler.  Easier said than done!  It doesn’t look perfect but I think the trim helps disguise the area where the top was glued on.  I also purchased some wood corner appliques on Amazon to use in the corners on the front and sides of the table.  At $3.75 for each applique, that was my biggest purchase for this project.

I first used chalk paint on this table and I won’t bother giving you the lengthy details of all the issues that cropped up as I painted this piece but let’s just say there were plenty of unexpected events!  I was beginning to think whoever put this table out to the curb in the first place had the right idea!  In the end I went with a latex paint in a color called Peat Moss.  I used Rustoleum metallic paint in Bronze Medal to highlight the raised surfaces. The drawer pull was one I had on hand from another project.  It’s for decorative purposes only since the cabinet no longer opens but I thought it added a little bling!

Despite all the time and trouble, it still felt good to transform this discarded, plain-jane sewing table into a modern, interesting piece of furniture!  I named her Kona after the rich, dark, coffee-colored finish.

Thanks for stopping by, let me know what you think of Kona!