Create Your Own Shabby Chic Coffee Table On A Budget

If you love shabby chic furniture, you might have realised by now that it doesn’t come cheap! My jaw dropped the other day when I walked past a retro furniture shop in Harlow with a friend and saw a beautiful shabby chic coffee table with distressed details – then I glanced at the price tag which read £250… What!?

Some small furniture boutiques make profit by sourcing cheap wooden furniture and upcycling it. Then they target wealthier homeowners who would rather pay £250 than make the furniture themselves…

Seeing as we sell 1 litre tins of shabby chic furniture paint from £17.99* I knew I could easily create a table that looked just like that with our paint!

However, there are still shabby chic lovers out there that don’t realise this. So I’m here to give you a step by step guide on how to upcycle cheap wooden furniture and turn it into a modern shabby chic masterpiece!

How To Paint Your Own Shabby Chic Coffee Table

My table wasn’t the same shape or size as the table I saw in the shop window – but I improvised and created myself a stunning side table instead. It was originally a dark wood table that my Mum didn’t want anymore and was going to leave out the front for anybody to take.

I quickly snatched it as I had already envisioned how I could turn it into something beautiful! And I knew the finished product would match my shabby chic feather lamp perfectly!

So, if you want to find out how to make your own shabby chic coffee table, just keep reading.

You Will Need:

• A wooden table (you can use one you already own or pick a cheap one up at a charity shop)
• Shabby Chic Furniture Paint
• A Paint Brush or roller – depending on the finish you want
• Newspaper or plastic sheets
• Sandpaper
• A damp cloth
• Masking tape (optional)

Getting Started 

To start with, you need to prepare your work space with newspaper or plastic sheets to ensure that there aren’t any spillages.

Then, give the table a quick wipe over with the damp (not wet!) cloth to get rid of any dust and marks.

You can dry it straight away with a towel or you can stick the kettle on and let it dry naturally.

Next, take any drawers out and put masking tape anywhere that you don’t want to paint. For example, I put masking tape around the black handle on the draw, which was the only part of the table I didn’t paint.

Painting Your Shabby Chic Coffee Table

With your chosen paint colour, simply start painting! By using a good quality, richly pigmented paint, like Rainbow Chalk Paint, you won’t need to use a primer. However, you may need to do 2-3 coats depending on your desired finish.

If you like the rustic look and would prefer to see the wood grain showing through, use 1 or 2 coats.

If you want an opaque finish, you will most likely need 3 coats. But the paint dries fairly quickly, so 3 coats won’t take long at all!

Distressed Details With Sandpaper

You may want to keep your coffee table like that, or you can give it the shabby look by distressing the edges and corners.

Use a light grain sandpaper and ever-so-gently start to sand down the edges, where the furniture would naturally distress after years of use.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be gentle. It’s like adding salt to soup. You can always add more, but you can’t take it away!

Don’t be too heavy handed and take too much paint off at once. Sand a little bit and then step back and observe it from further away. Then you can decided which parts need more sanding.

In the picture below you can see that I gently sanded the corners of the drawer, the edges on the table top and the edges of the legs!

Make Your Shabby Chic Dreams A Reality!

Don’t be the girl looking at shabby chic furniture she can’t afford in the shop window. Create the same looks for a fraction of the price!  Then you can treat yourself to the boots you saw online earlier this week…

Rainbow Chalk offer shabby chic furniture paint in 37 fantastic colours, including matte and metallic shades!

Click the image to see our full range!

Or select a colour from the drop down menu and add to basket from the product boxes below!

If you love the colour of my table, I suggest going for Clotted Cream. Although your table will look great in any of our colours! Need a little help deciding? Read our guide to picking the perfect shabby chic paint colours.

First time buyers get 10% off with discount code “ftb10” – enter at checkout!

*price as of March 2017