All Hail, Mighty Paint Sprayer: One Room Challenge, Week 3

Hey all!

We're now halfway through the One Room Challenge, and officially at the exciting part when projects start to be completed, slowly but surely. We've spent a lot of time this week continuing to sand cabinet doors, but wanted to get some "quick win" projects done this weekend - and here they are!

Project 1: Breakfast Nook Table

As I've mentioned before, we're going for a Parisian bistro look in our breakfast nook, with a built in banquette, bistro chairs, and a table. The table was one place I was hoping to save a little money in the budget - I wanted a round table with a somewhat ornate base, but that was really my only "must-have." I figured there had to be at least a couple round tables sitting around on Facebook Marketplace, so I spent a few days searching and ultimately found the perfect one for $30. It was the right shape and look, and it was (maybe most importantly) the right size - it's 42" in diameter, which is about the max that our nook corner could take without crowding.

This table was in rough shape. It had some major scratching on the top and around the sides, and the gold feet on the bottom were losing their color. However, it wasn't anything a sander and some paint couldn't fix. I used an orbital sander with 100 grit paper on the flat surfaces, and hand-sanded the rest (can you tell sanding furniture has become somewhat of a theme around here?)

Once it was sanded and good to go, it was time for primer. At the beginning of this project, knowing that we were going to be painting our kitchen cabinets, Barkley and I went shopping for a paint sprayer. We ultimately ended up with the Wagner Flexio 2000.

The process - we had to put tarps EVERYWHERE for this project.

Cabinet painting will be primarily my project, so doing this table was a little bit of a practice run with the sprayer to determine good technique prior to that undertaking. I sprayed the table with primer first, and was pretty pleased with the sprayer - it gives a really even, smooth coat, and isn't too hard to control. My one complaint would be that the locking mechanism between the turbine in the back and the paint canister in the front is a little flimsy, so from time to time the two pieces would break apart in the middle of painting and it would splatter. That was a little frustrating, but it didn't happen often, so it was workable.

After the primer dried (which took forever, since it's cold), I sprayed the table with Behr Black in a semi-gloss finish. It took a couple coats to get in all the nooks and crannies, but had good coverage and is a true black, which is what I was hoping for. I also refreshed the feet for the table with metallic gold spray paint.

The surface - you can see some imperfections where the sprayer splattered, but overall it's a much smoother finish than we would have gotten with a brush. We'll probably sand those imperfections off before the end of the ORC.

Ultimately, I'm thrilled with the table. It fits the space beautifully and is striking against the white walls - not bad for $30 and some paint!

Project 2: Banquette Cushions

One of the other primary components of the breakfast nook is the corner banquette, which we'll make using shelving units from IKEA. We don't have the shelves yet, but are making a trip to Dallas next weekend and will pick them up then.

Though I have to wait to complete the banquette, I didn't want to wait to make the cushioned seat. My original plan was to sew the cushions (which would have been very interesting, considering I have never used a sewing machine in my life), but thankfully, my mom spotted a great tutorial for no-sew bench cushions from @philip_or_flop on Instagram. Once we had all the components, it only took us a couple of hours to complete!

We used MDF for the base of the cushion, high density foam (I went for the 3" thickness), batting, and charcoal gray velvet for the exterior. Home Depot cut the MDF for us, which was a life saver and made this project about ten times more efficient.

When we got the supplies home, we used Gorilla spray adhesive to attach the foam to the MDF. Then we put the MDF on a workbench and used a bread knife to trim the foam to size.

Next, we cut the batting and fabric to size, and laid the cushion foam side down on top of the batting. We just wrapped the batting around the sides to soften some of the sharp edges of the MDF, and used a staple gun to secure it.

After that, we took the gray velvet and wrapped the cushion like a present. We stapled that in place as well - and that was it! Next week, we'll attach the cushions with a hinge to the IKEA bookshelves, and officially have a corner bench for our nook.

Those are the high points from this week! We also officially kicked off the countertops project, and have put the first few layers of feather finish concrete on the tile. I'll give an update on that next week when it's closer to completion!

Thanks for staying tuned! Catch you next week!

Much love,

Claire