Coffee Table Makeover

I need money to buy a dress to go to a wedding in June, so I need to sell another piece of furniture.  Nothing like making money doing what I love!  My husband found this coffee table on the side of the road and brought it home for me.  How romantic!  Lol.  

Before.

The table had some surface scratches and had some candle wax dripped on it, but other than that it was in great shape and has great lines.  I used a putty knife to scrape off the wax and gave the whole table a light sanding to minimize the scratches and dull the shiny finish so paint would stick.  A damp paper towel wiped up the dust from sanding.

I gave the table a couple coats of black paint, but realized that it was lacking interest.  I decided to play up the inset area of the top of the table using a stencil and some white paint.

Stenciling.

I centered the stencil from left to right as well as from back to front on the top of the table.  I used painters tape to keep the stencil in place while painting.  I thought it would look better if I just outlined the stencil instead of filling in the entire shape with white paint.

One down, several to go...

After completing the first stencil grouping, I let the paint dry completely before re-positioning the stencil for the next group.  I ended up tracing the stencil three times.  To complete the look, I outlined the inset area with a thin line of white paint.  And here's how it turned out...

After!