Coffee-Stained Coffee Table

This table seeks to take the stress out of owning a coffee table. You might constantly worry about stains appearing on your table from water cups or the notorious coffee cup. But with dozens of coffee stains already on the table you have absolutely nothing to worry about!

Idea inspired by a ReadyMade project a while ago. If anyone has a link to it please let me know. Nothing shows up in their project archive.

Materials:

1. Ikea Lack side table
2. gesso
3. coffee
4. clear coat

Tools:

1. paint brush
2. coffee cup
3. sandpaper

Roughen up the surface of the table with some sandpaper. This will give the gesso a better grip

Apply a coat of gesso to the surface. Without this, the coffee beads up on the surface of the table as it dries. With the coat of gesso we get nicer circles on the surface.

Pour some coffee into a dish and use your coffee cup to apply it to the table. Be sure to play around with different ways of using the coffee cup to get different types of stains on the table. You can get splotches, thick rings, faint rings, incomplete rings, a splatter of tiny droplets, and a light smear of a cup being moved along the surface.

After everything is the way you like it, seal it up with some clear coat. There are several manufacturers of this stuff. I like the matte finish and use Rustoleum Painter's Touch Crystal Clear.

Your table is now ready for guests. Let them leave their drinks of the table. Who cares, right? It's already stained! Now you can think about better things, like enjoying the conversation.