Table re-do part tres: paint

Sorry about yesterday. I know I am supposed to reveal my table and all today, but i got caught up last night at a family dinner and forgot to blog. So the big reveal will be Saturday!!!

Painting (water based). Because I hardly primed my table at all, it took about three paint jobs on my table, legs, and chairs. This took the longest amount of time. The primer took very little time to dry, but with paint I had to do one coat one night, wait till the next night and do the next, so on and so on. Steve was great during this time. He helped me so much painting the chairs every night. I love him.

Steve cleaning up after a night of painting.

One coat done!

After all the coats were done, it was time for the details. I was inspired by this table top and these dipped legs.  With the table top, I drew the lines out with a pencil and a ruler. It took me a while to figure out that I had to wait to paint the square corners until the painted border had dried. I had to do it this way because the lines I made were 2" wide, and the tape I bought was 1 1/2" wide... meaning those two inch squares were way to hard to make perfect if I had painted it all at once:

That square center is far from perfect in this picture. This would have never worked. I should have bought 2" tape. 

So I had to do the border first, wait for it dry, and then paint the squares. It took foooorrrr dddaaaayyyysss to finish. 

The finished product.... not so hot. Those bumpy lines were/are keeping me up at night. The tape I used wasn't great or I didn't wait long enough or too long for the paint to dry??? I don't know. A girl at work suggested I use Frog Tape instead of normal paint tape.... Anyway, I used a small paint brush for touch ups. From far away, it looks great. So as long as Steve and I eat on the couch and stare at our table it's all good.

Now for the chairs. I measured up the leg 6" and marked it. Then with the painter's tape I decided white tipped legs over gold ones (the white looked so good against the gray) For some reason, the tape worked way better (no bumps) on the chairs than on the table. 

I thought about doing gold dipped table legs, but when my sister, Anna, saw them all she could think of was an 80's dinner table (and not in a good way). I'll save the gold spray paint for another project.

After the gold dried, I sanded it ALL THE WAY off, primed the ends twice, and then did two coats of white paint.

The veneer came last after waiting 24 hours for the last coats of paint to dry. I did three coats fo veneer with a 24 hour period inbetween. FOOORRR DAAAYYYSSS. Veneer is really important though; without it, your job turns crappy fast. We used a combination of spray veneer for the chairs (easy to get in all those nooks and crannies) and paint on for the table top. Between each coat a light sanding is required, and when I was going over one chair, THE PAINT STARTED PEELING OFF!!!!!!

Once again, I believe this is due too my lack of proper sanding and priming. To fix the problem, I sanded this area of the chair all the way down to the raw wood, primed twice, and then did all my coats of paint AGAIN. 

This was such a great learning experience for me. I would totally do it again since I now understand how to do it. What's that saying? If you fail once, try try again?