Napkin Covered Coffee Table

Pulp Fiction Coffee Table: Storage that can be used for extra seating!
Chances are you have an old piece of furniture that may need to be refurbished. Or you can find one at a garage sale or thrift store. If it isn't an antique, you can some do fun stuff with it.

I have had this nice, solid, hollow wood box around for years. My father had it made for their console TV many years ago. It was pretty when it began, but over years of wear the finish got dinged up a bit, and I used it as a craft surface for a while, where it got a lot more scratches and paint splatters, so I would need to re-finish it somehow.

I envisioned a tufted storage ottoman coffee-table at first, bought the feet online a few years ago to do this, figured I needed a piece of plywood for the top. I also bought the batting and such... and promptly decided to do something else.

So this year, trying to clean up some projects I have wanted to do for years, I recently re-covered one couch, and created some fabric at Spoonflower to make accent pieces. http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3711579

I had a very different idea for this coffee table when I started, thinking I would still do the tufted storage ottoman coffee table - with the same fabric, and decoupaging black and white copies of the same pulp fiction covers all over the sides. I wanted a black background under the copies, so I was just going to use a few of the black paper napkins along the edges. But when I saw the texture of the black paper napkins I found at our local Dollar Tree, I really loved it and thought it looked much more refined than what I had originally planned.

Also I wanted the coffee table top to be more functional and less wobbly than a tufted ottoman, I decided. I wanted it to be able to reverse so I could still use it as a work surface while watching TV and doing crafts. So I went with the flat wrapping paper (also created at Spoonflower from the same fabric line I made for this project) for the top.

I like this technique because someone can take any napkin color and use it to cover things, and it is really cheap and looks pretty cool. Or it can be painted over, or use wrapping paper for the whole thing. I liked the texture of the napkins.

And the wrapping paper table top - someone can create their own, or find another cool wrapping paper at their local dollar store or anywhere. The cost of creating my own roll of paper was only $16 with shipping for a 26" x 72" roll, that covered the plywood and gave me a little extra left over. I loved being able to create my own fabric and paper to really decorate exactly how I wanted - and using it as accent pieces made it really affordable.

I gathered my supplies mostly over the years, or had them around the house

Here are the supplies I used for this project:

Wood box to be used as a coffee table: Free
Six 2 1/2" Wood Legs: $15.00 (I got them when they were $1.87/each)
Six Table Leg Top Plates: $11.00
Large Dollar Tree Black Paper Napkins: $4.00
Gift wrap I designed: $16.00 with shipping, (minus $8.00 "Spoondollars" I have received because other people wanted to buy my fabrics that I designed for myself!)
Gallon jug of glue: $17.00 (leftover from another event)
Great Stuff Spray Foam: (not recommended - Spackling Paste would have been better): $3.00
4' x 2' 1/2" Plywood Top: $12.00 on sale
Acrylic black paint: $4.00 (with coupon from Joann's)
Mod Podge Spray Sealant: $7.00
Here are "tools" I used:

Foam Brushes
Zip Baggies (to hold foam brushes when not in use so they won't dry out -and I don't have to wash them out every time and waste glue)
Sanding sponge
Plastic Wrap (to not glue top to bottom while I had to flip top over to work on reverse side)
Dollar Store Plastic Tarp (to stand top on while drying to avoid cat attacks)
Scissors
Folding utility knife (my favorite strait edge cutting tool!) & extra blades
Large Metal Ruler (or even better, a large squeege like used for screen printing - which I didn't have)
Screwdriver
Sharpie Marker
Dollar Store Putty Knife