Renewing and Repurposing a Table: Personalizing Possessions

Renewing and repurposing furniture you already own is one of the most satisfying experiences! Yes, it does take some amount of courage though less bravery is needed when the piece has outlived its current purpose.  Here is a glimpse of my large vintage table in its new form. Read on for the full story!

This photo shows the table with its top surface primed. The base is painted black. It was most recently a worktable in my husband’s woodworking shop. But this table has a long history. We purchased it at a used furniture warehouse on the Gulf Freeway in Houston, Texas in the 90’s when we were looking for a large desk we could both use.  We were told it had been a conference table in the offices of Tellepsen, a construction company who built the Shamrock Hotel you see in the movie Giant starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Tellepsen also built the Texas Children’s Hospital and the Herman Park Conservancy. When we bought the table for a couple hundred dollars it was a mahogany color with cigarette burns on the tabletop.

We used it as a partner desk for decades and the table has enormous sentimental value to me as this is where my doctoral dissertation was written. It has been painted several times, most recently black with a sanded top.

When my husband recently decided to purchase a workbench the table became mine to repurpose.

My vision was to create a multi-purpose space for working with fabric and clay. I’ve written about designing and making my own clothes as well as table napkins and placemats. The repurposed table will be a grand surface for drawing patterns on tissue and cutting the fabric. I worked with clay in college and particularly enjoyed slab construction. I can use a marble pastry slab I have and put it on the table when working with clay. These photos show my sketches for drawer liners with one drawer dedicated to fabric design and the other to working with clay. To do this, measure the drawer and then assemble all the tools you need for each purpose. Then, draw around the tools and finally, add lines to show where the dividers will be installed.

These are the color mixes and tools used to create the faux marble finish for the tabletop after priming and then painting it with Sherwin Williams latex paint in Oyster White. (flat)

Here is the actual marble to inspire the design for the tabletop. This is Napoleon marble that once graced the walls of the bank building where we lived in a loft.

The next coat for the tabletop is a custom mix of Pelham Gray Light and Oyster White cut fifty percent with water. It is brushed on in parallel lines and then patted down with a natural sea sponge. It’s best to stop and pat it down when you have brushed on a space about a foot wide.

Using Sherwin Williams Black Magic paint slightly diluted with water and a fine sable brush lay down the lines. A wide badger hair brush is flicked across the line to create the blurred edge look found in the original marble.

Next, dilute some of the Oyster White with water and use a  very fine sable brush to create some lines whispering across the surface.

After this, because it will be a worktable it is a good idea to put several coats of wipe on polyurethane to seal the surface.

The base and drawers are painted with two coats of Sherwin Williams paint, Tobacco, in a matte finish. This color is beautiful in the room as there are windows on the north and south side and you can see a myriad of shades of green and brown on the Texas Hills surrounding us.

Here is the completed table! The faux marble is a bit larger than life, but this is as I had envisioned. Isn’t it thrilling when something turns out just as you imagined it?  This table will continue to be a useful part of our lives!

You may want to look around and see if you too have something you could renew and repurpose!