One of the projects on THE LIST for our home refresh was a re-refurb of a table that my friend Chris gave us several years ago. She was going to pitch it but asked if we wanted it, knowing that we love furniture makeovers. First, we made it into a G-Dragon table, but it was a fail because the modpodge coating that Henry gave good ol’ Jiyong didn’t hold up.
We were initially going to do a G-Dragon version 2, but then when we decided to have a Christmas party, I thought it would be good to have a coffee table in the secondary seating corner of the living room. That area has The Devil rug, the church pew, the Robert Smith / lyrics wall, and the amber swag lap. So, kind of a darker, more gothic corner of the house, you know?
I knew immediately that I wanted the table to be red with black accents, and then went to Spoonflower to find wallpaper to use for the top. I ended up finding this coffin print on pink fabric almost instantly – I still kept searching for other things but I knew this was it, the ONE. When you know, you know!
Henry said he felt that fabric should work OK with epoxy so I ordered it and then of course it sat around for weeks and weeks until it was literally days before the party. I will say thought that once he started it, he was motivated to see the whole thing through.
The thing with me is that I am great at thinking of the projects, but even better at delegating. I think Henry and I are a good partnership in that regard. I wish I had more patience to do the actual hands-on stuff. (I mean, aside from art-related aspects.)
Henry is just really good at mechanical things, and measuring, and following directions, and using tools, and not losing his temper.
Anyway, Henry hates epoxy big time, and epoxy is not much of a fan of Henry either, and there are definitely some imperfections to this but I love it. To me, it’s perfect. It’s so shiny and the black border is glittery and the coffins are so adorable and THERE IS PINK.
I had to laugh though because I was like, “WE GOTTA FINISH THIS. GET IT DONE” and then I was the only one who sat in the DARK CORNER at the party last night. It was good though because I honestly have never really sat over there before and it was oddly comfortable. Definitely cozy too. I liked it!
I found my old Curiosa program too from when Henry and I went to it in Cleveland! I think that was 2004…yes, it had to have been 2004 because that was also the year we went to Coachella to see The Cure and we saw them TWICE that year because of Curiosa. 2004 was a SHIT YEAR but at least I got to see The Cure twice. Perspective.
Ugh, I love it. One thing that isn’t it done yet is that there is a side drawer that needs a handle – I found a pink skeleton key drawer pull on Etsy and it is currently en route from Canada so hopefully sometime this week Henry can put the finishing touch on it.
Honestly, I wish we had a larger house just so that we could keep upcycling furniture because it is soooo much fun (well, it is for me, anyway – I should probably ask Henry someday if she enjoys this…). Almost everything in our house is spraypainted and totally personalized, which, you know – not everyone’s jam! I’m sure tons of people look at photos I post on Instagram and think, “Wow. They ruined that” or “That’s fucking hideous, and I would never put that in my house” but for me, I just love having furniture that has a story to it, and isn’t something you can buy. And I like that it’s something, to a point, that Henry and I can work on together!
Also, I love knowing that we gave this table a second lease on life. Thanks to Chris for thinking of us!
I still want to do another G-Dragon table, but we’ll just have to thrift a different table for that! (Bets on how long it will take until Henry eventually starts building tables from scratch….)