Craft Table

My craft room is in the rounded part of the house so I was looking for a round table to fit the area so I could craft by all of the windows.  I bought a $10 table on Craigslist that looked promising--it had a pedestal base!  Unfortunately when I started sanding the top it just started peeling and splintering like crazy.  It turns out that the thin layer on top was just covering tons of wood chips that had been pressed together to make up most of the table top.  I took the top off of the base and looked for a new table top.  It is crazy expensive to buy a table top that's close to 50" so another cheap table was the way to go.  I found a simple table at Goodwill for--you guessed it--$10.  I took it straight to my dad's house and we got to work sanding it.  It was a nice, solid piece of wood that would look great on that pedestal base. 

Since I now realize I didn't take many before pictures, here's what I DO have:

the base:

and the top:

Dad fixed up the table so the two pieces would fit (the size of the new top was very close to the old one!).  I took it home and started to paint. 

If I did this again I would definitely prime the wood first so the paint wouldn't bubble up.  Instead I used a paint and primer in one, which works well for walls but not as well for wood furniture.  However, I:

a) had never done this before
-and-
b) am incredibly impatient regarding my projects (example here )

Spray paint was definitely the way to go on the base, considering all of the nooks and crannies.  Here are some pics of the process:

I wasn't thrilled with the finish on the top (a spray clear coat) because I had to stop spraying before I really wanted to because of the bubbling.  Truthfully, if this was going to be used as a dining room table I would have not gotten far with the painting before I sanded it down and started over, priming first.  However, this table is going to be a work surface (I've since gotten paint on it!) so it really wasn't a big deal to me.

Hooray for $10 furniture!

Adi