Cute Kids Chalkboard Table & Chairs
May 4, 2010
My little boy has the teensy tiniest bedroom in our house and it doesn’t fit much more than a bed, his dresser and an armoire. Nevertheless I’ve been wanting to find him a little play table for under the window for the longest time, but I wanted to spend very little since he will outgrow it in a few short years.
I happened upon a little coffee table a few weeks ago, and some funky little chairs (at where else, a thrift store) and decided we could give them a little makeover so they would work in his room. I paid $25 for all three pieces.
Here’s the not-so-attractive set before (ew, yuck)
And here’s what a little paint, new foam and fabric turned them into:
Here’s the simple steps in their transformation.
I stripped down the chairs as fast as possible and ceremoniously burned the fabric. Heh heh. No, I removed the fabric and tossed it out, yuck yuck yucky. Then I painted the legs white and added some foam to the chairs.
Next, I sewed some simple slipcovers with this blue and white tweed for the upper and lower portions of the chairs. I found this fabric at a second hand store that had a collection of vintage handwoven tweed fabrics. I paid $6 dollars for three yards of it.
Then I attached the slipcovers with a staple gun to the underside of the wood frames of these chairs.
Chair 1
Chair 2
Here’s the step by step on the chalkboard table
I sanded the old coffee table by hand, then primed it with oil based primer – Zinsser in the brown can. I gave the top two coats of primer.
Then I smoothed my primed tabletop down with my sander to get rid of obvious brush strokes. I also added a second coat of dark primer, knowing I’d be adding the deeper tint chalkboard paint on top. Dark primer works better with medium to dark colored paints to help your paint stay true to its color.
Then I added two coats of this ‘Deep Ocean’ paint to the top (available here).
Voila, a chalkboard table for my four year old boy !
He can play tic-tac-toe with his sister, doodle some dinosaurs, or he can just write “You rock Mom” which would probably look more like “u ruc” but I know what he really means . . .
. . .or he can draw racetracks, construction zones, and airports, you know, the important things in life when you’re four. The chalk washes off with a damp rag.
In a couple of years I’ll find him a sensible desk.
Meanwhile, I’ll leave him to his imagination.
Tags: chalkboard paint, chalkboard table
