DIY: Zinc table

I know, I know...as I said in this post, it really never ends around my house. As many of you guessed, we started a re haul on the family room last week. I am waiting on one fabulous piece of furniture to arrive and once it does I will share the full reveal with you. Do I dare say that my downstairs is now 100% complete? I am over the moon happy with the changes we've made and the way it all came together (spent very little money) was such fun.

While we had the family room torn apart over the weekend my friend Laurie popped in to check on my progress. I see her design-savvy wheels spinning the minute she walks in and checks everything out. At 7:30 in the morning we were moving furniture from room to room as quietly as we possibly could.

The console table that used to be in front of the window in my family room is now in the dining room. The thinner, sleek table fits better here. To be honest, I never loved the color and texture of the plaster job that I did on this table and I felt it would be too much shabby, chippy paint going on in the dining room.

We snatched two of these sweet industrial end tables for the family room this weekend {from World Market, here}, which inspired me to expand the look into my dining room.
Why not make the console table look like a zinc table? I used my zinc pots as a guide and rummaged through my paint supply. A few years ago my mom sent me home with a few faux paint kits after cleaning out her garage. I pulled out a pewter paint kit that she gave me and put it to the test.
I was immediately giddy with the results. I did this inside the house the other night and it took all of 45 minutes (after allowing the first coat to dry for one hour). I didn't even sand the plaster paint, I just sprayed on step 1, brushed on step 2 an hour later, and wiped off in spots.





Before and after. The color before was a bit too light and sweet for my taste. The zinc-ified version is much more rich and works well with my industrial mirror.

**UPDATE~ I added a coat of clear gloss poly on the table last evening just to give it a more shiny, metal appearance.
This is what I used. You can probably find this at most hardware stores but I did find it online here, in case you're interested.

This finish on this planter from Restoration Hardware was the look I was going for, rather than the shinier chests and furniture pieces they are currently selling.

I've always loved this zinc counter top in the Texas hill country home that Ginger Barber designed {post here}.

A new bench was added to the dining room this weekend as well.

Our new bench is sturdy and long (but still fits underneath table) so we can fit quite a few people. I immediately thought of my French dough bowl when I saw the color of the bench and wanted to bring more wood tones into the room. It's a cleaner look than the skirted bench was, especially combined with all the skirted chairs at the table. Too many skirts at one table makes the man of our house very nervous. ☺

It's the Provence Bench from World Market {here}.

Here's a shot of the server/chest in the family room. While it's a bit taller, it doesn't block the window nearly as much as the long console table did and it gives some height to the room. I keep all of my table linens inside and trust me, I really don't have anywhere else to keep them so this baby has to stay for awhile.

Just a reminder of what my table looked like a few, short months ago.

Let me know if you have any questions about the zinc paint technique and you can check out another method over at Freckled Laundry, here.