My Two Cents - penny covered entry table

A few years ago I found this little table at a roadside flea market. I loved the simplicity of it and even thought the naturally peeling paint added to it's charm. If I remember correctly, it only cost me a dollar or two and it has been a fixture in my home ever since. Finally I decided it was time that I cleaned her up, and that was my  only intention to begin with...

Sitting down in front of the TV, I scrubbed and scrubbed with steal wool trying to get the metal to look shiny and new again. The ridge around the top turned out wonderfully but I quickly became disappointed with the results of the legs. Flecks of rust just wouldn't come off no matter how hard I tried. Next best bet? - spray paint. I happened to have a can of a light hammered copper paint on hand, perfect. But if I was going to make the bottom half of the table look fresh and clean I would have to do all of it or it just wouldn't look right.

For the sides and the drawer I wanted to do something different. Painting it one color just didn't seem fitting for this piece so I pulled out my secret weapon...Mod Podge. I used scrapbook paper in three different shades of brown, each with it's own pattern or texture, to create the look of expensive wood. Each sheet was cut to the length needed then cut in random widths and decoupaged in no particular order. The result was better than I could have asked for!

The next obstacle was the top. My original plan was to take off the screwed down top and hopefully find a flat metal surface to work with, maybe even decoupage.



 But once I started disassembling, I realized there was just no way it would work. Once I unscrewed the top layer, I found a couple surprises. Most notably, a smelly, rotten moldy wooden board.

There was no way that was going back in my house after I saw it so I peeled that part off and found even more nastiness...

...ancient adhesive that could not be scraped off and an uneven felt (?) surface. 

It seemed I would have to work with what I had and find someway to cover all the imperfections. I had recently seen a tutorial on a table top covered with pennies that I thought was amazing so I decided to try my hand at my own.

After gathering up all the spare pennies in the house, I covered the surface to see how many I would need. They were pretty dirty so I looked under the sink and discovered I had nothing to clean them with. I would have to find a homemade remedy. You can read more on the method I came up with here - Cheaper than Tarnex - homemade tarnish remover

Once dry, I glued each penny onto the top with a small drop of original Tacky glue. It doesn't take much, you just don't want them sliding around. It may seem tedious but the whole process took the same amount of time that it took me to watch Kitchen Nightmares. 

All the penny tables I had seen were finished with clear resin, giving it a beautiful glossy sheen. Well, to be honest, the thought of trying to mess with resin scared the crap out of me so I used the next best thing...grout. I chose black grout that would tie in to the dark shades of brown/black on the sides of the table. After spreading on an even layer, making sure to get all around the edges, I let it dry for about 20 minutes then wiped off. It took much more wiping than I had planed on but the pennies did come clean.

The next day I brushed on a thick coat of polyurethane to add some shine and help seal it. Once that dried, my new beauty found a home in the entryway, where she gets to be seen by everyone through the door.