Today I have a fun project for you. A while back I found this great oak drafting table. You may actually remember this crazy picture of me trying to get this table back to my house.  The things we do for JUNK!

And here she is in all her glory. After a good cleaning it was time to get busy, and with 2 coats of paint it was time for some distressing.

I love a good distressed piece of furniture, so naturally I decided this piece would look best distressed. Now I am kind of old fashioned when it comes to distressing furniture, and I’ll be real honest, I’m cheap. I painted this whole piece from a sample size of paint (2 coats) from Lowes. Now I prefer to use a power sander, it makes this go so much faster. I lightly sanded the corners and edges and places where the piece would naturally show some wear. It doesn’t require heavy sanding, I used a 200 grit sand paper. Once your piece is good and sanded, grab a damp cloth and wipe it down good to remove any excess sand and dirt. Then grab your favorite stain, mine is Minwax’s Dark Walnut. I prefer to use a paint brush and brush on the stain. Now here’s the kind of tricky part, I only do a small section at a time. So on this table I painted up one side of the leg, then I grabbed a clean rag (or old tshirt you don’t want any more, or old burp cloths work great too) and wipe off the stain. As you will quickly learn, the stain is going to soak into the areas that were sanded down the most. If you do not get your desired color the first time you can brush on the stain a second time and wipe it off again. Now this process will darken up and give the paint a richer over all color. You can get a better idea of what I’m talking about as you see in the pictures below.

And now for the fun part, I bought this great butcher board top at Ikea to create the perfect island and then I brought my dad to town and used his expertise to put it on. And let me tell you, it was really so easy, I could have done it myself, but since my dad so kindly offered to help, why not just let him do it.  And it freed me up to take some pictures to share with you all.  So to get started I bought these corner braces or brackets, I used 6, 3 on each of the long sides of the table.  Place the bracket where you want it, make sure it is a place where you will be able to fit the drill into.  Also make sure that the bracket is level, we couldn’t find my level, so instead we used a piece of wood and placed it across the corner of the table to make sure that the top of the bracket did not exceed the top of the table.  This is very  important because it will ensure that the table top sits down onto the wood instead of leaving a gap between the table base and the butcher block top. (hopefully that makes sense, just leave a comment and let me know if you have any questions.)  Then using a very small drill bit, drill a small hole into the 2 holes of the bracket.  This will make it easier to then screw your screws into the base.
Now that the holes are prepped, grab your screws and screw them into the base.  Then grab the butcher block top, measure and make sure that you have it placed evenly, then repeat the same process with the brackets, by prepping the holes and then screwing the screws this time into the table top.

And there you have it!  A beautiful butcher block island!  Once the top is all attached I would recommend wiping a mineral oil to treat the butcher block before using it.


Once a drafting table but now a beautiful island!

Lindsey

Linked up at Furniture Feature Friday w/ MMS