All Wrapped Up (kinda)

I’ve finally finished (well almost) my project from two doors! I started and took a little break because I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to finish it. So this is how it sat for several weeks.

Ugly, right? I originally had it stuck in my head that I was going to paint it. Probably because I’ve painted a lot of things in the past year, check out my DIY projects page to see a few. Lately, I’ve been seeing lots of great projects that were transformed by fabric, such as on Recently and Hello Boudreau, both projects are stunning!

Once I had used an entire tube of wood filler and still had holes to fill in, I thought that fabric would be a great way to hide those small imperfections.

Before I get to the fabric (and my reasoning for why it’s kinda finished), here is how we built the table.

We started with two doors purchased from Habitat Restore, $15 for both. We used the one on the bottom (no knob hole) for the top of the table and the legs were created from the two ends of the top door (to avoid the knob hole), the cut (open side) was placed on the bottom and the solid end was the top edge.

David measured and used the chop saw, we have this one which we’ve been very happy with. Since we don’t have a table saw, he cut half of the door and then flipped it over to cut the other half. The key to getting clean, less splintery cuts to to cut slowly (David just taught me this as I was cutting too fast – the other day, that is David in the pics 🙂

I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the steps, so I made a drawing instead. Hopefully it still makes sense 🙂

Once the legs were attached with screws, we filled all of the holes with wood filler. Once dry, a lot of not so fun sanding happened. Afterwards, I looked like I had walked through a dust storm!

Between all of the cutouts for hinges, door jam, and scratches on the door, I was tired of filling in holes. Finishing with fabric was a a great way to hide some of the minor imperfections that were left.

I would definitely not recommend sitting on this or placing a heavy computer on it without extra reinforcements; however, as an accent table, it is good to go!

I followed a fabric wrapped table top tutorial on Martha Stewart’s site found here. My only deviation was how I finished the edges, see below for more details.

The table was primed (from when I was planning on painting). Cut and ironed with starch my fabric, Waverly Enlightened in Pumice, which I found at my local fabric store, Beverly’s and with a 50% off coupon it was $10 a yard. 

I brushed on water based polyurethane and applied my starched fabric, adjusting it till it was straight. I then finished with one coat of polyurethane (I may add more later like recommended in the video)

Look at that crisp corner! Using the starched fabric and ironing the fabric/polyurethane made it easy to fold and get such a crisp edge. The top is one piece of fabric and the corners were folded at a 45 and the left over fabric was folded over the edge, to be covered next.

For the inside I cut a 25″ wide piece of fabric and folded/ironed the edges .5″. This covered the raw edges on the inside. Wrapping the table in fabric took about 2 hours.

I love the look of the fabric!! It was pretty easy to achieve a wrinkle free look by following the video and is a great way to add texture and pattern to a piece!

Cost breakdown:

Doors: $15 (Habitat Restore)
Fabric (2.5 yards): $25 ($10 a yard at my local fabric store)
Polyurethane: $ 7 (Wal Mart)

Total: $47

I could of cut cost by choosing a cheaper fabric or using a different fabric inside, but I love the continuous look!  

Now onto my problem. I have a tendency to get excited about projects and just start. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. For this project I would of been better off drawing a few options for the dimensions of the table to see what would work best with the ottomans.

When put with the ottomans, it fits exactly over them (which looked great in my head but a little tight in person), when I think it would look better about 6-8″ taller than the ottomans. The plan is to add legs to give the table a little more height.

See what I mean? Sorry for the dark photo, I took this last night as the sun was going down.

So lesson learned, draw out your ideas (with a few options to choose from) prior to doing anything permanent. Of course it can be fun just to try something, just maybe when money and time aren’t invested 🙂

I’m hoping the addition of a few legs will help. Or if that won’t work, I’ll try to craigslist it and then build another one 🙂

I also updated the mood board with a few new fabric options.

I’ll be back soon to share updates on the new draperies for the bedroom, Eames chairs, and new office table. Whew, that’s a lot of projects!