As someone who impulsively rescues stranded furniture from the sidewalk, it’s no surprise that this is the third rescued coffee table to come through my living room.

I’ve always had a soft spot for all that is abandoned.

As a creative, it is almost always mandatory that our creativity be challenged when we see something being discarded. As if our intuition is communicating the fact that “this circumstance will simply not due” and now “it is your job to figure out how to save this and make it function / beautiful / and useful again.”

Sometimes, if we’re lucky enough, the makeover is purely cosmetic and only requires a little tender love.

But the question, isn’t simply how do we fix it. But how do we make it better along the process.

When taking on a project such as this, one must always be ready for the unexpected. Ergo, always proceed in stages before purchasing all your materials.

It’s ok to want to ‘one-stop-shop’ and gun to finish over the weekend, but it is also ok to take the time to enjoy the project and do the work properly without wasting too much money. This may be a seemingly obvious statement, but we tend to waste money when we rush. The perfect example…

From the moment that I saw this table I knew that I wanted to stain it in a blue color.

Now for those of you who need to be brought up to speed, this means that the table can only be stained if it’s made out of wood. Because only wood finishes can be stained. Thankfully I hadn’t bought the stain because as I was sanding it, I discovered that all four legs of this table were made of plastic…

So after losing my wind, I went to the hardware store, vetoed the stain and bought paint instead. I was urged by the paint specialist to use the Benjamin Moore Aura collection because it dries fast.

It dries a little too fast for my liking as I was half way through painting and it already started to tack before making my way across the top. But the opaque finish of the color did leave my table with a much more contemporary look that I had originally intended with the stain.

The teal color will now be the staple of a series of random blues, greens and turquoises that will start taking over my living room.

Now it has a much bolder presence and holds the middle of the room quite perfectly.