Custom coffee table

As I mentioned in the post previous to this, we have been getting rid of some of our furniture lately, to make room for some lovely new pieces from family members.

This post is about a rather plain, black coffee table that I've honestly had for the better part of 10 years.  A friend took me up on my offer to give it a custom paint job in the design of her choice, so it was game on!
The friend/client likes art deco, and waterfall furniture.  So I started Googling and hunting around Pinterest until I found this image - it came from the awesome blog, Little Green Notebook.

I was smitten!  I ran it by my friend, and she liked it, too!  Now... how to make my plain black table look like this one?

I am a hopeless eyeballer.  It's just how I am wired, I guess.  So I studied the pic and did my best to sketch out a version of the fretwork design on paper, which I'd then translate into table-size dimensions.  Once I had a version I liked, I primed my table, and spray painted the whole top a satin ivory.

A couple of coats later, I set to work with my sketch and my big metal ruler.  Here was the interesting part - because this eyeballer had to do some serious measuring and re-measuring to get this intricate design to look right!  I have to say, I am proud of myself for getting the calculations almost perfect.

Once the design was sketched out, I began painting around the design - meaning, I would give the table  a coat of brown semi-gloss, making sure to paint around the design on top so the ivory would be left.  It worked!  It was also a lot of work.  I way underestimated how long this project would take, but that's ok.

The straight lines were relatively easy to measure out and execute.  The art on this piece came in the curved parts.  Major eyeballing.  I am sure there are smarter people out there who know a way to use some device (French curve?) or calculation to make their curves more accurate.

I "warned" my friend about this - the piece she was going to get would have brushstrokes.  It would look hand-painted. She was ok with that.

The rest of the work was just really small paintbrushes and patience.

In the end, I think the result was worth all the effort.  It will truly be a conversation piece!

Oh, and one more thing.  I was super curious as to the origins of the table I pinned.
After some serious research, guess what I found out?

The table came from Horchow.com (it's sold out) and its price tag.....drumroll please..........................

"Entertaining" Coffee Table Price: $1,039.00 As it turns out, I didn't AIM to get a look similar to that of a thousand dollar table.... But it sure is fun when you realize, you HAVE! XO, Anne Linkin' up here: