HOW I DIY'ED MY HAND PAINTED 3D CUBE DINING TABLE
I've always swooned over beautiful round dining tables with interesting leg detail, made out of chunky solid wood with an intense graphic pattern on the surface, I didn't however, like the price of them! I've lusted over the Rockman & Rockman Cube table (below) for a while now, but as amazing as it is, it's not really a steal at £695! Not in my budget unfortunately.
So I told myself that I could do that myself! After a lot of second hand furniture research, I decided to purchase a good looking, solid pine round dining table, with a great base, and commited myself to the task of painting the 3D cubes onto it myself. Little did I know that this would actually be a mamouth task!
The table cost me £20 from a private seller on eBay and the materials cost about £15, as I only needed a small tin of wood primer and sample pots of the black and gold paint.
The Stages:
The second undercoat of white alone had already transformed this piece, but I wasn't going to stop at your usual white painted furniture (what do you think about my working tools?!)
Getting the size of the design just right for the size of table wasn't as hard as I thought. I used the design from an Osborne and Little cushion that I have which I carefully traced onto tracing paper using a ruler, and then placed it onto the centre of the table where I extended each of the lines off. And the pattern was born.
I started with the black first, I could see the table come to life straight away, instant gratification! But I have to say, getting those black lines straight was hair-pulling-out stuff. I can't tell you how hard it was to get them right… and it each graphic needed 3 coats!
Next for the gold, I always knew that this would be the right colour combo, not just for me and for the room, but right for the pattern, keep it classic I thought. Painting the edge in black gave a really nice professional finish to the table and made the pattern stand out even more.
The night that I got to the 'time to assemble' stage was a very happy night. After weeks in the making I could see my table coming together, looking all 'one-off' and interesting.
Here is it looking exactly how I intended. I'm not going to lie, this project was not easy.. There were times when I was really unhappy with the straightness of the lines, that I wished I'd taken the easy option and Jackson Pollocked the whole thing! But then, good things don't come too easy do they? I accepted the fact that I am not a machine and straight lines would not be achieved 100%. In the end this just added to the look of the table, a piece designed and hand painted by a human being, with a lot of time, effort and patience. I think my dad would be proud.
Approximately 50 hours later, of sanding, undercoating, designing, drawing the layout, then hand painting each individual shape by hand to form the desired 3D cube effect, I'm left with this amazing one off piece that is exactly what I wanted, much more time consuming than I thought, but a better result than I could imagine. The best thing about it? It completely me, and unique to me.
