Ikat Covered Table

Tis the season for tag sales, flea markets, and poking around my favorite salvage shops.  Absolutely one of my favorite times of the year, and the time of the year where Sean starts shaking his head and doesn’t stop until winter.  I do come home with some eye-sores, but in the end, each piece cleans up quite nicely.

A couple weeks ago when I was poking around one of my favorite salvage shops, I found a great bamboo table.  Actually, it was a table with no top, so I should really call it a table base.  Anyway, I found it, shoved it in my car and brought it back home.

Sean: “That’s filthy.  What are you doing with that?”

Me:  “It’s only dirt.  I’m going to clean it up, sand and paint it.”

As I was cleaning the table, and painting it, I wanted it to have an unexpected top.  Some fabric was in order.

I decided to put the table in my office, so I needed a fabric that wasn’t going to compete with my loud floral chairs, yet needed to let the table make its own little statement.  I kept thinking that an ikat (pronounced ee-kaht) pattern would compliment the table well, so I set out to find the perfect pattern.

I ordered lots of swatches, and settled on my original pick.  I ordered a yard and I was good to go.

I cut a piece of MDF to the measured square shape that I needed.  I placed the MDF on top of the fabric and cut a perimeter of a 2 inch border.

I hot glued the fabric to the MDF, then applied trim tape around to make it look more finished.

I was happy with how it looked, but I felt it needed a little more jazzing up.  Upholstery tacks would look great.  And then I broke into a sweat – my math would inevitably be off, spacing would be a challenge.   Until I found this great upholstery nailhead tape!  Greatest. Thing. Ever.  All the tacks are hooked together and spaced out for you.  Every 5 tacks is a hole where you hammer in a tack.  It was that simple!  You can buy the upholstery tack tape here.

Straight lines, perfect spacing.  Worked like a champ.

I attached the top to the base and this table is transformed.  A new beginning and great statement for this table.

 I’m happy my eye was on ikat.