SOOooooo…. Mr. Bug and I had big plans to spend our Memorial Day on nice, productive projects such as garage organizing and putting together our guest room. Those plans were DASHED last night when Mr. Bug found a super-deluxe dog house on a routine Lowe’s trip.

We’ve been in the market for one.

I’m about 98% sure Lucy will only enter that house in response to food bribes. This one doesn’t have the variety of sofas and beds that the big house has, after all.

Anyway – where was I? Oh, yes. So our productive house projects were sidelined today so Mr. Bug could play general contractor and assemble our new acquisition. Rather than work on a boring project inside, I decided to start work on our second living room end table so I could sit outside with him and swelter.

So, remember my recent side table project? I stripped the paint off a little end table I got at an antique shop and had spray painted black. Here’s the before and after…

Since I was so pleased with the results of that project, I moved on to the slightly larger table that lives in the corner between our sofa and loveseat. Here’s a nice, awkward before photo – the green arrow marks the spot.

This table is another antique shop number, although I don’t think it’s really ‘antique.’ It’s nice, solid wood, I like the shape of the legs. When I got it the vendor had already painted it white, and then I spray painted it black.

I initially intended to just sand off all the paint like I did in my first project, but once I got rubbing I liked the effect from the two different layers of paint coming off separately.

I managed to get the table top done and I started on the legs before Mr. Bug and I petered out, inflated all of our rafts and went to bob around in the pool. I drug the table back in so I’d have a place to put my lamp, my gatorade and my giant stack of magazines.

I really, really like the look so far, now that it’s back in the living room!

I might take a bit more of the white off before finishing, and when I wax it the whole thing will darken up a bit, but it’s a good start. I probably sanded for 2 hours or so. I have a little belt/hand sander somewhere, but it is still MIA since the move, so my arm is a bit sore and my right hand feels like the skin is made from sandpaper.