How to paint a geometric design coffee table

• Coffee table
• Medium and fine grit sandpaper
• Resene Quick Dry
• Small foam roller and tray
• Resene Lustacryl paint in your choice of colours, Fleur used: Resene Alert Tan, Resene Pirate Gold, Resene Bismark, Resene Fast Forward and Resene Black. Or you can use Resene testpots and finish in a clear Resene finish
• Green painters tape
• Measuring tape
• Pencil
• Ruler/long straight edge

Instructions

Step 1:  Start by giving the top of the coffee table a sand with medium grit sandpaper. You don’t have to remove all the old surface/varnish but rough it up enough to create a key for the paint to hold to. Wipe off all sanding dust.

Step 2:  Put painters tape around the edge of the tabletop to prevent paint getting where you don’t want it.

Step 3:  Use a small foam roller to apply one coat of Resene Quick Dry. Once this has dried, sand the primer with a very fine finishing sandpaper. Wipe away any dust with a soft dry cloth.

Step 4:  Use a long ruler or straight edge and pencil to draw a line diagonally between two opposite corners.

Step 5:  Put painters tape along this pencil line and press the tape down firmly to prevent any bleed through of paint. Use the foam roller to apply two coats of Resene Alert Tan, allowing for the first coats to dry before applying the second coat. Remove the tape as soon as you have finished the final coat of paint.

Step 6:  Measure the distance between the two diagonal corners and mark the halfway point. From this mark, draw a line to the corner. Use tape to mask off this quarter of the table and proceed to paint as above, this time using Resene Pirate Gold.

It’s a good idea to leave the paint as long as possible to cure before putting tape on it to paint the next adjacent area, as you don’t want the tape to pull off your new paint when you remove the tape. Fleur left her paint a couple of hours, and sometimes ideally overnight, before doing the next section.

Step 7:  With the remaining unpainted quarter of the table, use a ruler to divide the quarter in half vertically and into three even sections horizontally.

Step 8:  Draw in random triangles, making some big and some small.

Step 9:  Use the same method for taping as you did with the first two bigger triangles, making sure to rub the tape down firmly before painting it. Fleur used a larger sized craft paintbrush for painting these smaller triangles. Fleur made a random pattern with more Resene Alert Tan and Resene Pirate Gold, and added Resene Bismark, Resene Fast Forward and Resene Black.

Top tip:  Consider extending your main Resene base colour onto the legs of your table for tip to tail colour.

Styling and images by Fleur Thorpe. May 2021.