DIY Adventures with Julie and Bob

I bought a pair of these end tables from Target a few years ago for the last apartment I was in:

I needed something cheap, and I think they were about $35-$40 each. I never loved them, so when I found something better they went into my son’s bedroom. At one point they were pushed together to hold his big fish tank.

We moved again,  got something sturdier for the tank and he decided he didn’t want them in his room anymore. Around the same time I was working on the living room here. Bob didn’t have any tables, but I didn’t want to buy any either – so it worked out perfectly. That post is HERE.

They aren’t ugly, but there isn’t anything great about them either. They serve the purpose but are pretty blah.

I’ve been thinking about doing a mosaic tile treatment on the tops to jazz them up a  little, but I haven’t found any tile that was really grabbing me….the selections at Home Depot and Lowe’s aren’t all that exciting.

The other issue I was running into was that edge of the tables are raised, but only slightly. Most of the tile I found was a lot thicker and would have made the surface too high.

Last week I found some thin 13″ x 13″ glass tile squares, and I knew they would be perfect. I wanted to lighten up the dark wood, but I didn’t really want to add a lot of crazy color either. I got the random patterned square for the center and 2 solid color squares of the same kind of tile (which were cheaper) to cut up for the border.

First I put down the adhesive:

I quickly figured out that these tiles DO NOT need a lot of mastic. I was mixing in some little pebbles in the border and it was getting messy:

I had to dig a lot of this out with toothpicks…not fun. I traded my notched trowel for a little putty knife, which worked a little better.

I let it dry for 24 hours and added the grout:

They really came out AMAZING:

There are a few funky spots where the white adhesive is peeking through the brown grout, but I can go back and touch that up.

I’ve been doing a lot of mosaic projects lately, both here and on my other blog Frugal & Fabulous Design – but this is the one I’m the most happy with:

The patterned squares were $10 each, and the solid ones were $5  so I totally upgraded both tables for $30 – plus I still have some leftover for something else.

I’m linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick’s Before and After Party

and

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