Upgrade your Battle Station

I don’t know about you but I think black shiny furniture is beautiful. So when I upgraded my space that’s what I looked for.

I found the most amazing set and like everyone I had all these good intentions of keeping it as pristine as possible. Of course mornings happened and not being a morning person all my good intentions got forgotten. Then disaster struck, I was using a sugar water for glitter glue for a night out and did not realise the bottle had leaked. I headed out and the next morning I went to pick it up off the top. That’s when I pulled a little too hard and some of the top came off. It’s left a nasty ring that haunted me for a while.

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So that’s the state it’s been in for a while because I thought my only two choices were getting it professionally refinished, which would be super expensive or looking for a replacement. Then one day I had an idea. Sticky back plastic.

So I did a little research, not too deep but just enough to know the idea wasn’t total trash. Then I pondered what kind to use. Of course I could go plain black but that would require a lot of prep work. The surface would have to be totally smooth. So in the end I decided on something a little more forgiving. Fake black marble.

Of course there was a little prep to do. I cleaned the surface, removed any nail polish stains and sanded down the ring. It wasn’t 100% smooth but close enough. After that I measured the top, as the edges are a little rounded I didn’t need it to be 100% flush with the edge.

Do take you time on this step. Measure and remeasure the top. Mark the underside of the plastic and then measure it again. Once the measuring is done, cut as straight as you can. Lay the piece on the top and check it again. If you’re happy then you can start the peel. Peel only one edge and I’d chose the thinner side. Stick it down slowly. Work slowly rolling the backing paper off and sticking it down. If you get a bubble push it out of lift it up and stick it back down until the bubble is gone.

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I’m not the most skilled person and yet I managed to do it’s mostly smooth and bubble free. There is one area where it isn’t and that’s where the ring mark is. I’m not really surprised but I am surprised how easy it was. I need to sand and level the surface down a bit more where the mark is but the benefit of the marble effect is it is very forgiving. The other thing about this particular plastic, is it is removable and I can redo this at any time. I don’t see me worrying about the mark for now and it looks great.

So that’s how for a fiver I managed to make my Dressing Table looks almost brand new. Do you think you you’d try this? Let me know in the comments below.

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