Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Surprise Decoupage Table For My Teenage Son. It's a Hot Chili...But Not The One You Are Thinking.

Pic from the redo a few years back.
 Just to give you an idea of the room.
In between doing projects for the home and such, I slipped in a little something special for my teenage son.   My son is a musician and a song writer.  His room is dominated by his passions with three guitars, a mandolin and a ukulele sitting on his futon, an electric keyboard propped up in the corner and his mic for recording on a stand in the middle.  He also likes to collect vintage 70s rock albums and has them displayed on the walls in his room.  I just got rid of his loft bed and his mattress is currently laying on the floor.  Funny thing, he loves it there and doesn't want a bed! Teenagers.  What ya gonna do?
String Swing CC01 Home & Studio Unit - Guitar/Mandolin Wall Hanger
As soon as we get the garage cleared of a bunch of junk, I am having it painted. At the same time my son's room is going to get a fresh coat.  The walls are pretty banged up.  Ya gotta wonder what the heck he does in there?!  I have ordered wall hooks for his guitars and can't wait to get the guitars out of harms way.  The futon is just not a place to put this type of stuff. 

Notice one has a hole. bummer. But he says it
sounds nice anyway.
Months ago, I showed you his clothing shelf here.  It was always such a mess.  We tried everything, but in the end when the loft bed went, so did the shelf.  I re-organized his closet and his clothes are doing pretty good in a four draw Rubbermaid unit. 

So what is the special project?  Well, he had this table in his room that I brought home from a trash pick off a neighbor's pile.  I took it out in an effort to de-clutter. Plus, it just never matched and looked ridiculous sitting in the middle of his room.  Well, he really misses the darn thing. Come to find out, it was the perfect 'coffee table' that he liked placing his electric keyboard onto when he played it...which is often.  Bad mommy.  Putting style in front of function. (wink)

Knowing that he needs this table back, I decided to surprise him with a presto chango project.  His hands down favorite band of all time is the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I gotta admit, I like them a lot too.  I researched online for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and found a collection of black and white images of them taken over the band's long career. I arranged them in a collage the size of the table top. 

I painted the table satin black.

I then decoupaged a collage of the images onto the top of the table.  I first used a fixative spray on the images in an attempt to keep them from smearing and the ink bleeding. 

But in the end, the red ink still bled through when I was applying the first top coat of Modge Podge.  I decided to just 'go with it.'  Turned out to be a happy accident because it left behind a patina that gave the top a little visual interest. 
You can kinda see the pink that mixed with the
first coating of Modge Podge.  I spread that out
to create a pinkish-purple hue in places.

Here you can really see the pink accents.  It's cool.
So here it is ready to be presented.  He has no idea that I have done this.  He thinks the table is gone forever.  So excited to see if he likes it. Fingers crossed.



I have been researching cool ideas on how to get his bed a little off the ground.  I thought this one was kinda cool.  I have it on my Pinterest if you want to take a look at it there.  What do you think? 
Pinned Image

Do you have any great ideas for creating a platform? Send them along.  Maybe I will surprise him again with a totally cool platform for his mattress.  Sometimes it's fun to do surprise projects for my kids. After all, they put up with their crazy artist mother everyday.  It might as well benefit them too. Right!?

-The End-
THIS POST WAS FEATURED!!!! YEAH!



14 comments:

Grammy Goodwill said...

The table looks great. My stepson was a fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers - don't know if he still is.

Rosemary@villabarnes said...

I like the ink bleeding through. Very artsy. Nice job mom.

Unknown said...

i am so amazed !... your son is paralleling my own son, Joe. He lives in Chicago (Film editor ) and he has every musical instrument you mentioned and harmonica and flute and a old trumpet someone gave him ..our guys would prob get a long well. Maybe I should ask Joe what his fav band is. He also has an old wooden coffee table in his apartment that needs something !!!We sure are sneaky moms LOL

- KAT -

Twice Nice said...

I think using some vintage pallets if you could get a hold of them would be great. Might even look for some industrial wheels to put it on that you can lock in place, or unlock to scoot the bed around and be able to clean under. After moving furnture back and forth last weekend, I think all furniture should be on wheels!!!
Love the table. Bet he will too.
Deb

Korrie@RedHenHome said...

I think he is going to LOVE that table! You are such a cool mom. I love Deb's idea of the pallets for the bed!

Missing_Pieces said...

The table looks great! I bet he'll love it! What a fantastic idea for my niece! I found this awesome platform bed idea a while back. It offers great storage underneath (on wheels). Now I'm sure your son may want to forgo the curtains and all the girliness, but otherwise it could work. :D

Missing_Pieces said...

Oh silly me...here's the link lol

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/how-to/how-to-make-a-captains-bed-on-the-cheap-021336

tofubeast said...

Turned out great! I wish I got cool stuff like this as a teen! So what did he think?

Deneen@dreaming-n-color said...

The table is awesome. I need to make my son something like that! Too cool!

Vickie @ Ranger 911 said...

I think he'll love his new/old table! I really like the colors bleeding through the photos, too. Isn't it nice when the oops turns out in your favor?

Jenny @ Simcoe Street said...

This is great -- he'll love it!

Jenny
www.simcoestreet.blogspot.com

Cassie Bustamante said...

how awesome and fun is that! i definitely think it will be loved!

very merry vintage style said...

This is such a great idea. Love the photos on top I bet your son loves it! Thanks for linking up to Share the Love Wednesday-
Mary

Katie said...

If he doesn't like it I'll take it! I love it, and I think you did a great job! I just wanted to let you know I'll be featuring this on Sew Woodsy later today!