#paint patterns

I have a hard time sitting idly by when a piece of furniture that can clearly benefit from a lick of paint goes untouched. It's rare I'll let something sit for very long, so when I found this dinged up black coffee table in the corner, I knew I had to get a little creative with it.

I never waste a drop of paint, so I love mixing the dregs of a can with other colors to create some custom hues. I have a big surplus of this blue-gray, and an awesome teal color I made recently. I also had a small sample of Greek Blue [Annie Sloan]. And so my chevron colors were chosen! 

There can be a lot of math involved when it comes to creating patterns like chevron; making sure to measure for accuracy, having guidelines, etc. I wasn't in the mood for such formalities, so I just started creating a pattern by sight.  I'm fairly good at eyeballing angles, so if you're not I HIGHLY recommend getting the ruler out and roughly measuring things out.  I didn't want the pattern to be too precise, so some zigs are longer than other zags [if that makes sense!].  

The best part of any paint/tape project is the moment I get to peel off the tape, strip by strip.  It's so gratifying! 

I wasn't sure what to make of this table.  I was experimenting more than anything else, so I didn't have a really specific plan or idea in mind when I started attacking it.  But I have to say, I love it! I actually really like that you can see the scratches and dings peeking through the areas I'd blocked off with tape. It gives this piece a cool, raw quality.

I posted a quick photo of this last night while I was working on it, and a friend immediately responded, saying this table immediately reminded her of Charlie Brown.  His iconic black and yellow zig zag shirt is oddly similar, and with that, I bequeathed this piece the 'Charlie' table!