DIY: faux marble table

supplies:

• black spray paint
• gold spray paint
• marble contact paper
• painter’s tape
• craft knife

(The pictures start with the black areas already painted because I accidentally erased the earlier ones from my camera. I am a dork).

After giving the tables a  good scrubbing to get the city grime off, I taped off the gold areas and spray painted the rest two coats of matte black.  Then I reversed the taped off parts to spray the brass areas.

  I first tried to restore the brass.  But it is plated, and had gotten scratched and rubbed off in some areas.  It was never going to look nice.  Still, I hesitated.  The dull gold color was either going to look fabulous or awful, and once it was done it was going to be too late.  I gotten pretty twisted up about it, then reminded myself this is only furniture and it was free, and just went for it.  Luckily, I think it looks awesome. Right?   After the painting was done, all that was left to do was cover the tops with the marble paper.  These also needed a good scrubbing, and still had stains and paint splatters all over them (I really wish I had a picture to show you). I used a spackle knife to smooth to paper from the middle out as I unpeeled the backing.  I still  had a few small bubbles.  I popped those with a pin and pressed the air out.  I overlapped the 2 pieces by 1/4″ to join them together.

Here’s a close up of the two pieces joined together.  You can see the seam when you look for it, but I think a marble pattern always looks a little random, so it doesn’t bother me. If you want to cover a whole surface in one piece, you can find larger width marble paper here. The finished table! My new nightstands from abandoned furniture for less than $20.