When we lived in West Didsbury, we renovated our three bedroom terraced house, knocking down internal walls, and eventually creating a very contemporary, open plan home, which included a large L-shaped concrete bench, with storage underneath.
When we bought our house in Istria and set about renovating it, one of the things we were sure about, was that we wanted another concrete table, to sit in The Well Room, under the windows, just where the cabinet, with our West Didsbury mosaic sits, in the photo below.
The builder who was working with us on the house, in between other jobs which we regularly threw at him, got on with the job of creating our concrete table, in The Well Room, which was also, at the time, doubling as a kitchen. As a new kitchen was also being built at the same time.
We did toy with the idea of not having the plinth underneath, and leaving the table “suspended”, but as one of the other jobs was to expose the well chamber and cover it in safety glass (and illuminate the chamber), we felt that the combination of a table hanging over a 10 metre drop, might freak some people out, so we decided to go along the Health & Safety route. Polished up, the beautiful grey concrete table top did look very smart…
We had a period of time, pre-Covid, when we hosted Workaway guests. Kaiti and David, from Ohio, worked on few projects with us, and when David told us he had worked with resin before, our interest was piqued when he said he could do this treatment on the concrete table. It wasn’t a cheap job, as resin is expensive, but we liked the sound of how it could look. And, to be fair, I did love the finish, with its hard, hard sheen – just maybe not the way it changed the colour from a gorgeous light grey, to a mottled bronze. I think if we had thought about this more carefully, we’d have invested the time and money in having it polished to perfection, but hey, you live and learn. The plinth was painted dark navy, to match the floor, and a brushed gold trim was fitted, to complement the new look of the top. At the time, all seemed to fit together, as we were introducing dark navy colours and gold accents.
As we’ve started to re-transform the house, the table has started to bug me. It’s not really what I envisaged and even covering it up with runners etc wasn’t working. We investigated having the resin removed – prohibitively expensive. Then investigated painting it – after much googling and speaking to specialist paint supplier, we discounted this as we didn’t think we’d ever get the finish we wanted. So, the decision was made to have it taken out and rebuilt in the garden, where the finish wouldn’t bother me as much. But, as often happens, you just sometimes have a light bulb moment and decide to try something – if it didn’t work we’d already decided it was going outside.
So, what was this light bulb moment? White undercoat and a few coats of white matte paint, rollered on carefully…
An unbelievable result! Hard wearing and durable, there’s no way this beaut is now being consigned to the garden. With new wooden benches either side, and now set against a white floor and newly painted white walls and white woodwork, the concrete table has had a new lease of life…
