Faux Marble Top Coffee Table

Faux Marble Top Coffee Table – DIY Before and After• DIY Furniture Projects• Living Room• Living Room DIY Projects DIY Faux Painted Marble Coffee Table

A couple of months ago, I bought a new coffee table for the living room. I decided to buy a new one when I rearranged the furniture in its current layout and realized that the edge grain plywood herringbone coffee table I had made was too thin with the furniture arranged in the new way. (However, it will appear elsewhere.)

Faux Marble Top Coffee Table

So after looking at probably hundreds of coffee tables, I kept coming back to this mid-century modern coffee table with a stained wood base and white top.

Wooden Coffee Table With Faux Marble Top, Red Cocoa Brown

The choice was uncharacteristic for me because mid-century modernity doesn’t generally appeal to me, and yet this is the one I keep coming back to. I found it in several different stores online, but ended up buying it from Amazon, which had the lowest price and free shipping.

The table had consistently high ratings with favorable reviews, with the exception of one thing. Almost all reviews mentioned that the table top is NOT white. It was described as any color from whitish to yellowish. That made me hesitate and keep looking.

Somewhere along the way, I decided I’d love a table with a stone (preferably marble) top. I found this very similar table with a marble top from West Elm, and almost bought it. I had entered all my payment information and was ready to click the final button to make my purchase, and I just couldn’t do it. I finally decided that I changed my mind too easily and too often to pay that much for a coffee table. And it was only 20 inches wide, anyway. I really wanted something at least 24 inches wide.

Lift Top Cocktail Table With Faux Marble Top And 1 Drawer, Black And Gray

So I ended up going with the first coffee table. And sure enough, the top was definitely NOT white. I think it actually started out white, but the clear coat they used for the top definitely didn’t yellow. It looked like an oil based polyurethane that had yellowed a bit over time.

I had already decided that if the finish was too yellow, I would paint it. So that’s exactly what I did. About three weeks ago, I sanded the top down, primed it with Rust-Oleum spray primer, and then spray-painted it with Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch spray paint in white. I’ve been living with it that way for over two weeks to see if I liked it, and finally decided it was too white.

So yesterday, I decided to do a faux marble finish on top. I didn’t want a marble full of veins. I just wanted something subtle that would give the look of marble while toning down the shine of the white table top. This is how it turned out…

Naple Faux Marble Top Coffee Table

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I used paints in two colors: Behr Polar Bear (white) and Behr Intellectual (gray), both mixed about two parts paint to one part Floetrol, and then added a splash of water. I also used a sponge moistened with water. I couldn’t find a large sea sponge, so I used a yellow sponge from Home Depot (the kind found in the tile section) and pinched off pieces and cut them up to make it look more natural like a sea sponge. And then I had a variety of brushes on hand. I didn’t end up using any of the artist brushes in the plastic package, but I did use all the others: a 1-inch guillotine brush, a 1.5-inch guillotine brush, a very large, soft watercolor brush (the one that looks like a makeup brush), a large wide smudge brush and two small round art brushes.

I also used a spray bottle of water and had some paper towels on hand. With all my supplies together, I was ready to go.

Tangent Faux Marble Top 3 Point 16h

… I pounced, rubbed, brushed and twisted until the two colors blended enough to create a soft background with color variation.

Then using the 1 inch Guillotine Brush I created some really big gray streaks. The key when creating streaks with a brush is to be messy. You don’t want to brush them, but rather fill the brush and then drag, push and roll the brush as you move across the surface.

Once I had the veins in place, I used the large smudge brush to smooth those veins out a bit.

Tower Mary Civilization Marble Top Coffee Table Merge Put Away Clothes Waist

And then it was time to bury those veins a bit. Using the sponge, I applied white paint to both sides of the dark veins…

…and then using the large smudge brush I started jumping and twisting until those dark veins were buried deep enough to suit my taste.

Here you can see the difference between the buried streak at the bottom and the rest of the gray streaks that had not yet been softened and buried with the white paint.

Eicholtz 113808 Coffee Table Tricolori, Brushed Copper Finish, Faux Marble Top

I kept doing that until I had these big, dark veins buried and smoothed out, and they looked how I wanted them to look.

Here you can see the difference again with the half of the table done. The veins in the foreground of this image were just how I wanted them, but the veins on the other side of the table had not yet softened with white.

This is what the table top looked like after all the big gray streaks had been buried and softened to my liking.

Ajax Rectangle Coffee Table With Faux Marble Top Inlay

The final step for marbling was to use a small round brush for the small, darker veins. Once again, the goal is to be messy and imperfect. To get this look, I loaded the brush with the gray paint and then dragged it across the surface while pushing, pulling, and rolling the brush.

The bottom half of this skinny vein is what it looked like right after I painted it…

And then I used a spray bottle filled with water to gently spray over the top of that vein.

Vintage French Coffee Table With Faux Marble

The water alone did a lot to soften and break up those lines (because you don’t want perfect lines), but there were areas where I poised a bit with the 1-inch brush (which I had cleaned thoroughly) to break up the a little more. paint to give it a more natural look.

And of course you can do as much or as little marbling as you like. I decided to keep it light on the grain, so I stopped when it looked like this…

Once everything was dry I sanded the top very lightly with 22o grit sandpaper to make sure there were no paint ridges anywhere. After wiping off all the dust, I used my favorite clear top coat: General Finishes High Performance Top Coat in a matte finish.

Pieces Woven Rope Outdoor Sofa Set With Faux Marble Top Coffee Table In Brown & White Homary

I applied the top coat with a 6-inch roller and 1/4-inch nap roller cover labeled for smooth surfaces. I did two coats, lightly sanding with 220 grit sandpaper between coats.

One thing I learned while looking at marble photos online is that you can’t really mess up marble. There are so many variations out there! I found several photos that I thought for sure weren’t real marble because they don’t

Real marble for me. But they were! I could not believe it. Some of them just didn’t look like real marble to me. All that to say that it’s pretty hard to go wrong and make something that doesn’t “look” like real marble.

Signature By No18 Black Faux Marble Round Coffee Table

The challenge is getting it to look like a real marble which I really like, because I can be a bit fussy. 🙂 Fortunately, I managed to get a look that I like. But of course the sky is the limit with this. You can do as much or as little background color variation as you like, as much or as little “bury” the large streaks as you like, and as many or as few small streaks as you like. I mean, if something like this is more to your liking, you can really go crazy with it.

But I personally like more subtle marbles, so this one is perfect. And it really toned down that glaring white it used to be.

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 top that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has an M.S. and he can’t do physical work, so I do most of the work around the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.

Alya End Tables Toronto With Faux Marble Table Tops

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