The lovely April weather here in Minnesota this year is a bit deceptive!  Days in the 70’s make it a joy to get out and start clearing the gardens.  My solution to ease the  “gardening aches and pains” that are a result of way too much bending and pulling and digging is sitting on the deck with a cool beverage! 

Photo of the deck in 2012

The deck truly is a three season extra room in/out of our home!

We love the seating area with chairs around a round table with a copper inset for a planting.

Well….while I was sitting there relaxing…..
I noticed the surface of the top of the table!

YIKES!  Minnesota winters are hard on things!

In other years, I used Gel Stain and Polyurethane to refresh the surface! (Click to see how I did that)

But after doing that a couple of times, the situation called for something more drastic!

You may wonder…..why doesn’t this woman just buy herself a NEW table for heaven’s sake?
Well…..in all honesty it is a big pain to haul the old table out….figure out how to recycle or dispose of it…..then shop and assemble a new table!
Besides…..we love the shape of the round table and the insert that is perfect for flowers or other decor!  If we wanted a table like that….with a surface that would not deteriorate it would be a tad to spendy for this thrifty (CHEAP) person!
As you can see…..Lowes has JUST what we need!

 

A little sanding with a sanding block…..

Some Gloss Black Enamel paint…..
And a cheap throw away brush (because I decided to be lazy and not have to clean my brush)…..

Two coats later the table looked like this!
Not bad….but I felt like it looked a little like freshly tarred blacktop…..not exactly the look I was going for.

This is a case of “Use what you have”because the paint was all leftover from past projects!

The cost for this was a total of $1 for the disposable brush!

Even better…..the time it took to do this was way less than replacing the table we love!