Hi Everyone, Is it Monday already? Bryan and I are just coming back from an extended holiday weekend at home. It was great but it flew by so quickly. After a few days of fun in the sun I was ready to do something a little creative.

Since Bryan replaced the old broken table top with a new wood one, I’ve been wanting to fix it up a bit by spraying the base a darker color. I bought a can of RustOleum’s Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint a few weeks ago meaning to get right on it, but it sat by waiting for me to find a non lazy time to take it on.

On Saturday I saw my opportunity, carried the table down 20 steps to the lawn and got to work spray a few thin and ever coats of the paint. It covered like a dream and I was feeling pretty self confident and feeling good about my accomplishment. I’ve been eyeing this DIY Live Edge table ever since I spied it on Pinterest here.

With the high of my accomplishment I thought, “Hey why stop there? Let’s redo the table top too while I’m at  it”, My edges were already router’d  but I was still loving the dark stain top. I dragged the sander of the shed and got to work removing the whiteish finish we had originally put on. I was on a roll.

I mixed up a little custom stain mix using approximately 3 parts Minwax Colonial Maple and 1 part Red Mahogany wiped it on and immediately I knew… I hadn’t sanded enough. It was a big fat fail.

Hmm now what? I thought about it for a minute, tried to convince myself it wasn’t that bad, thought about it some more, asked Bryan’s opinion. You can guess what he said. Then started re-sanding. Making sure to get all of the finish off this time and then stained with the same mixture as before.

It was looking better but it still had some weird blotchy marks all over the top. I turned to Pinterest again for some inspiration as to what to do with this table top and found this Pin. The inlay look has always been on of my favorites.

I remembered seeing a few places that you could mimic the look of an inlay design by simply painting it on the top and finishing it off with some sealer. Viola instant look of inlay. Using the photo as my guide I drew out my basic pattern with chalk right onto the table top and began painting right over the chalk with Martha Stewarts craft paint in Wedding Cake.

Since I had used blue chalk to draw my lines a cool thing happened. The blue color of the chalk mixed with the white paint to add a fun shadow effect that I think works. Once I was finished, and the paint dried. It didn’t take long since it was 100 degrees in the shade that day.  I wiped away any remaining stray chalk lines with a damp cloth and sealed the whole thing with number of coats of polyurethane.

I think the darker finish helps it pop off the white rails we just started painting, while the white design helps to tie the whole thing together. All in all I’m pretty happy with the progress we’ve made on the deck so far this year. It’s come a long way from the not so great before.

To the much better progress shots.

Want to see more? Check out all our deck projects this summer right here.