So for this week’s “Thrift Store SCORE!”, I am proud to spotlight our AMAZING living room coffee table. This baby was alllllll John’s doing.

We recently made the 45 minute trip to one of our favorite antique/thrift stores out in Covesville. It’s a bright yellow shop right on the side of Route 29 on the way to Charlottesville (you can’t miss it!).

All of the heaps of old furniture and antiques in the photo above is making me salivate a little…Too much information?

Well it’s definitely a cool place if you’re into that type of thing 🙂

Kat (my sister), John and I piled into my car one Saturday and made the trek. We ended up walking away with a fabulous lamp and our coffee table!

Here’s the lamp as it sits in the master bedroom:

It was actually $70…Which is a HUGE splurge for me, especially on a thrift find. But it screamed “authentic” and is definitely part of the overall theme of mid-century modern that we’re going for.

Sold!

We spent the rest of the morning wandering through the rooms that are piled practically to the ceiling with furniture, vintage signs, artwork, jewelry, collectibles and dishware. It was definitely an experience going there…I can’t wait to go back!

After working our way through the inside, we then made a tour around the outdoor porch area (a QUICK one because it was February and freezing!). And that’s where we found our coffee table…

Here’s a picture of it in the living room today (the sunlight washes out the table-top details, but they are revealed later in the post – Don’t worry!):

I think John pointed it out and I was like “Oh, neat.” before turning on my heel to get back inside where it was heated. That’s right – I almost missed out on one of our favorite pieces because of the darn weather! Well, after another quick run through inside, John persisted about the coffee table and we braved the elements for one last look.

It definitely had the lines and mid-century mod vibe we were going for, but…While you can’t tell from the photo above, it has this slightly odd brown tile work on the top. Very weird, speckled color and I wasn’t sure that it screamed “1960’s/70’s” to me. Then John had the thought that we could always paint it some bold color like orange or teal. You would still see the tile’s lines, but not the color.

Sold!

The funny thing is that, when we finally got it home and set up in its place, the tile work suddenly took on a whole new life! We LOVED it!

Here it is in ALL its glory 🙂

The darker brown colors in the tile easily picked up the warm honey tones in the wood floors, and the light-colored grout lines mimic the shag rug underneath. It was just meant to be! Trust us, we aren’t TOUCHING the finish on the top.

Oh and the price? $40. Not too bad for a really well-built table (that Rocky, John’s dog, can jump up onto in excitement when we come home without hurting it at all!)

One last detail…When we put it in the car, upside down, we also noticed that there’s a message written on the underside – Something about the table being a graduation gift using wood from a family farm! LOVE special touches like that 🙂

In case you can’t read it for whatever reason:

To Virginia S Pedding
for graduation present from Mr. & Mrs. Poscoe Emley
Roanoke Indiana
Wood from own farm
July 1970

Happy thrifting!

(Photo Credit for picture of Covesville Antique Shop)

Okay, so yesterday’s post was all about my crazy idea to fix the new-to-us thrifted clock (which was missing 3 out of its 12 “spokes”) seen here:

While it’s still got PLENTY of 1970’s flair, even with its missing appendages, I thought we could do better…

So here’s the run down on my creative quick fix.

John and I hopped on over to Michael’s last night (after a very relaxing date night out to Ruby Tuesday’s) and picked up the needed supplies for the clock.

This is our bounty:

• Typical sheet of white foam core in standard size and depth
• Two different kinds of blades – A box cutter and an exacto knife for the precision trimming/cutting
• A jar of rubber cement (YAY!)
• Some matte finish Mod Podge for sealing everything
• (Sorry…the Super Glue was actually purchased for John’s new RC car – Didn’t mean to put it in the shot. Oops!)

Total cost was about $20 for all of it. Yes, that’s more than the $12.50 I spent on the clock, but my justification is that I can re-use ALL of these supplies for future projects 🙂 So really it’s just a fraction of that final cost…If you REALLY think about it.

So the first step was to trace one of the real spokes onto the foam core three times and then cut each out with the box cutter.

Then I carefully cut out the 3 “faux spoke” photocopies I had made earlier. Here’s a shot of all the pieces laid out (all two of them) sitting next to the real spoke. The color copy ended up being slightly darker and a deeper brown color than the real one, but I hoped it would blend in once up on the wall.

Then I just used the rubber cement to glue the paper copy onto the foam core backing and voila!

Here are all three of the finished “faux spokes” next to the real one – You can really only tell when you see the white underparts…

And here, my friends, is the final product up on the wall!!!!

I actually just used some masking tape to attach the faux spokes to the metal arms for the photo – I’m planning on using the exacto knife to precision-trim the edges, painting the exposed white undersides of the foam core the same brown hue as the real wooden ones, sealing it all with the Mod Podge and then hot gluing the foam core to the arm. Although, I’m thinking it doesn’t look half bad as is!!!!!!

Can you tell which ones are the imposters? Probably…But here’s a diagram just to make me feel better that they are that realistic looking 🙂

Here’s a shot of it from far away perched over the TV (can’t wait to find a mid-century sideboard for the TV, btw…No offense to John’s “bachelor” TV stand though!)

And then from the side – You can DEFINITELY see the faux spokes from this angle…

All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised by how cheap, quick and easy this whole redo was! And I’m thrilled to have the clock “restored” to its full glory 🙂