You’ve all seen them.  Old sewing machine tables.  They once had a sewing machine tucked inside and you could flip open the top and pop up the machine.  I bet these things were considered the height of innovation and so very convenient when they first came out.  No more having to drag the heavy sewing machine out of the closet and set it up on the kitchen table.

 And now of course they are obsolete, and the carcasses are a dime a dozen.  Somehow I managed to accumulate two of them and both were free.  And missing their machines.

Unfortunately I neglected to take ‘before’ photos of this piece, and I also didn’t get ‘fail’ photos of this one.  What do I mean?  Well, the first time I painted this I did an undercoat of  MMS Flow Blue with a top coat of Linen.  Problem was, it was a bleeder.  And you couldn’t see it with the Flow Blue.  It wasn’t until I added the Linen (which is a warm white) that I saw the pink stain coming through.  Since I didn’t really love this piece in the Linen anyway, I decided to just go back to the drawing board and paint it a darker color.

First I slapped on a quick coat of MMS Tough Coat Sealer, just to be sure that bleeding stain wouldn’t continue to plague me.  Then I painted it with Urban Rooster’s Smokey Ash.  Of course, the distressing brought out the Linen color underneath.

I’m not usually a fan of seeing a white base coat under something, but I was kind of stuck with it on this table so I made the best of it by adding a white stencil to the top.

I painted the little flip down compartment (where you kept your bobbins and needles) in Urban Rooster’s Cotton Candy.

I tried six ways from Sunday to get good photos of this table, but it just wasn’t cooperating.  First I staged it in the photo cottage …

I didn’t love these photos though.  I couldn’t get the angle quite right.

I tried adding the suggestion of some French flair with this book on the chair.

But it wasn’t helping.  This is a great book, by the way. Lots of fantastic pictures of French interiors.

I then moved the table to the front porch and placed my French cane back chair next to it.  I’m really not any happier with these photos, but I had to call it good because I took this table over to Eye Candy REfind for the grand opening last weekend.

I don’t think a chair has enough bulk to balance the table, but next to a bed or sofa it would be perfect.  Since the inside is basically hollow with just that little hinged bobbin drawer, it doesn’t provide much storage.  But you can add your own with some vintage suitcases stacked underneath.

I had Ken permanently attach the hinged top on this table, but I am thinking about creating a drinks station with the second one.  You’ve probably seen them on pinterest, where you flip open the top and there is space for an ice bucket where the sewing machine once was.  But that project is for another day!