Another Trash to Treasure

Our city has bulky trash pickup for each subdivision 4 times a year. My subdivision days are every 2nd Wednesday in February, May, August and November. They are some of my favorite times of the year! You put out your stuff curbside the night before and it is picked up the next day. It is funny to see all the pickup trucks driving around Tuesday night looking for "stuff". We had a "pile o crap" at our curb and by the time the city picked it up, there were only 2 items left. Needless to say, I am one of those people rubbernecking when I see a pile by the curb. I found this lovely specimen last Tuesday eve.

Nice isn't it? I knew right away that it was going to become a game table to use when my grandsons come over. I decided that I wanted to paint it with a homemade chalkpaint with a recipe I found on Pinterest of course! I have seen lots of furniture posts using this paint and knew I wanted to try it myself. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of plaster of paris mixed with a 1/2 cup of hot water. Then add 1 and 1/2 cup of any paint. I used some paint I had leftover from painting my kitchen years ago, the plaster of paris was leftover from some kind of project my daughter probably did as a kid. (Did I mention I don't throw too much away?)
 It made way more than I needed for this project.

After mixing it altogether it looked like this:

I began painting and I was not sure if it was going to look red enough. Sort of reminded me of Pepto:

So I found some brighter red in my stash of paint and added it to the mix

After painting the bottom with the red chalk paint, I taped off the top .The middle was going to be painted with chalkboard paint to which I would make a painted checkerboard.

I painted the top outside edge with a light grey chalk paint that I mixed up with the same recipe above.

I used chalk and a ruler to draw out my checkerboard I wanted to put on the top and painted the squares with the grey. I was not too concerned with it not being exact since I wanted it to look old fashioned.

Here it is after painting:

 I took some sandpaper and roughed up the edges and the checkerboard to give it an aged look. I then stained it with some old Minwax dark stain I had. After that dried, I used Minwax natural furniture finishing wax. I applied a light coat with a soft stencil brush I had and then buffed it to a nice sheen.

  I think it turned out great don't you?

 And here it is in my family room waiting for the boys to come over to play.