Ikea Side-Table Remixed

Like the Chair I wrote about a few weeks ago, the Lack side table I’ve had lying about my apartment for years now has always struck me as a perfect DIY project. I’ve put off doing anything about it though, precisely because it has so much potential. I’d keep having various ideas, and then, unable to settle on one, I’d just give up on thinking about it and invent a new type of chocolate truffle instead.

One weekend, I finally got around to it though, and here’s what I ended up with:

Here are all the raw materials I used:

And of course the table itself:

I got the idea for this project from another blogger, Lizzie, you can find her blog post here. I started by tracing the shape of the table on the underside of the wallpaper with a pencil. Next, I cut along the pencil lines, so that I ended up with a piece of wallpaper, the exact shape and size of the table.

In order to make the wallpaper stick, I sandpapered the surface of the table and applied wallpaper paste all over it with a medium-sized paintbrush.

The next step was a little time-sensitive; I quickly spread out the wallpaper on the table, before the paste began to dry. Then, using the rolling-pin I got rid of any air bubbles that may have formed and any extra paste.

This was a two-day project; I had to let the whole thing dry and set for at least 24 hours. The next day, I carefully peeled the edges of the wallpaper off and used gorilla glue to glue it back firmly. Again, I let this set for an hour and finally, finished off the surface with two coats of varnish made of a polyurethane base.

The next day, it was ready to be used 🙂