DIY Table Upcycle -No power tools needed

Hello friends,

As promised I am trying to post more often than I have in the last few months. So I have been fascinated with woodworking for a very long time but I never could get myself to actually do anything but lately, I have been working with wood and I can say I am in love :-). I moved from Banglore to Mumbai last July and we thought of getting rid of a few old furniture pieces to make room for something new. Me being me did not wanna get rid of anything so I decided to give the same old piece a new look with some nostalgia.

If you have furniture that you are ready to throw out for a new one or you are simply bored with looking at the same furniture for years. You can use this idea to upcycle almost anything from the table, end table to shelves etc.If you do not own any tools do not worry as you can do this Upcycled Table DIY without any power tools. Though if you own a sanding machine believe it will be a lot easier and less time consuming but if you don't...do not fret I made this without any power tool as the only power tool I had at the time was a drill machine and that is not required for this project. Though if you want there are some attachments that you can use with your drill to make the sanding job easy and if you are interested in those I will leave a link at the end of this post.

Last year I had made a set of coasters using some comic book covers that we read as children (to be honest I read them even now sometimes 😉) and continuing that thought I decided to work on this table with an old and torn Archies comic book that had lost pages here and there. Those of you who follow me on Instagram may have seen the pictures of this piece... here I am sharing the just process so that you can be inspired to try something similar with your old piece of furniture to restore some memories in an item of furniture so here goes.....

This was a painted piece of square table so the first order of things was to remove the paint and for that, I purchased a paint thinner from a local hardware shop and applied it all over the table, waited for it to dry a bit then the scraped off most of the paint with a homemade scraper made from a tin can... the paint did come off but most of it still remained.

So next came the mammoth task of sanding this. I used several grits of sandpaper starting with a 60 grit all the way up to a 300 grit. Then after a few hours of sanding and a whole lot of elbow grease had the piece looking something like this...

The sanding also revealed a beautiful woodgrain underneath and at one time I was ready to just not add that comic book decoupage but since I had 2 identical tables I decided to go ahead... 

At first, I wanted to overlap the pages but thought that I will look too chaotic with all the colours, faces and text getting jumbled up and not making sense...so I ended up cut the comic pages with decorative edge scissors and laying them diagonally to add interest I also left some gaps in between to enhance that pattern...

After laying the pages out to see how it all looked I then started to decoupage each page using matte medium. Once done I left it all to dry ...
In a few hours, I came back with sandpaper and lightly sanded it so as to remove and extra glue and to even up the surface..

Next came the varnish... I used polyurethane water-based outdoor varnish to coat it completely.

I did 3 coats of varnish with sanding in between finish this table and now it sits proudly in my living room and no new tables have been bought. :-)...

I am super happy and I sincerely hope this inspires you too...

I close this post here with hopes that I will be sharing something will you all again soon so until next time ...

Happy Crafting and Creating

Hugs

Seemaa

PS: List of all the supplies I used as well as some reference links for your info

Paint remover spray
Metal scraper
SandPaper starting at 60 grit all the way up to 320grit
Matte medium
Aquador Polyurethane outdoor varnish
Brushes
Link for drill attachments:: https://www.amazon.in/DIY-Crafts-%C2%AE-Crafts-Sandpaper-Assortment/dp/B07D9S5M9Y/ref=sr_1_13?crid=1IGGI8TW1RBUS&keywords=sander+for+drill+machine&qid=1579283617&sprefix=sander+dri%2Caps%2C273&sr=8-13