If you've been a regular reader, you'll have seen my recent post about the marbling trend that has taken design by storm over the past year. While I'm hesitant about a heavy use of marble at home, as an accent I think it brings unparalleled sophistication and elegance to a space...
...which is what led me to try a little 'marbling' of my own at home! A few weeks ago I found a rather sweet little side table at Goodwill for $18 and immediately dashed it home, brewing different ideas for how to spruce it up. This is the naked beast:
For those of us who can't quite spring for marble tiled countertops or backsplashes, there is an alternative: marble contact paper! It's the master of illusion, but this self-adhesive vinyl (it's not actually paper) can be incredibly convincing, when used in the right way. It's even easier to use than wallpaper, in that it comes pre-glued. All you have to do is to apply it directly to the surface of your choice and voila.
In addition, the marbling trend is so embedded that you can buy contact paper both easily and affordably. At the higher end is this grey-hued number from Design Your Wall, which I've seen turn up on quite a few DIY projects. Since I way experimenting and didn't want to spend too much, I opted for this version, which I got from Amazon. I'm sure if you look at them in person, there may be a difference, but online, they really look comparable:
A few weeks later, my product arrived directly from the manufacturer in Germany, and I got down to work. If you're not familiar with using contact paper (as was my case), you will need the following tools:
1) Scissors to trim the paper to the shape/size you need
2) A ruler or something with an equally firm, slim edge that you can run along the paper without tearing it. You'll need this to smooth the paper out as you go along.
My technique was to peel off one edge of the paper and start pressing it down onto the table with the ruler. The ruler helps eliminate bubbles and allows you to move at your own pace. Because my surface was rounded, I decided to trim the paper into sections and lay it down piece by piece. The first section is below:
The tricky part was then lining up the remaining section so that they didn't overlap. I had to keep repositioning the paper to avoid overlays, but the contact paper allows you to do this without losing its adhesive. As you can see below, I didn't get everything to line up perfectly, but the nice thing about marble is that the pattern is irregular anyway, so it's more forgiving of mistakes!
I confess that I did suffer the occasional bubble, despite using the ruler. There are different approaches to handling these: some say you should start over, and others advise treating the bubbles directly. I opted for the latter, given that this was just a fun project. So I took a box cutter blade and made a small slit in each bubble, almost immediately smoothing it over with the ruler. This helps knit the edges back together. You can go a step further and use a hair dryer to heat the vinyl, so that the edges soften and bind together. Don't forget, it's called "paper" but it's actually more like a plastic surface so you can manipulate it differently.
Anyway, after much fussing over the bubbles, I finished up! Doesn't it look nice with the gold edges, and more elegant than the wood?
I decided to leave the top surface as is for now, though I plan to finish that too because I love the contrast of marble and brass. But it's a nice reminder of the "Before" and the "After" effects. Here's the final product, in all its glory!
...which is what led me to try a little 'marbling' of my own at home! A few weeks ago I found a rather sweet little side table at Goodwill for $18 and immediately dashed it home, brewing different ideas for how to spruce it up. This is the naked beast:
For those of us who can't quite spring for marble tiled countertops or backsplashes, there is an alternative: marble contact paper! It's the master of illusion, but this self-adhesive vinyl (it's not actually paper) can be incredibly convincing, when used in the right way. It's even easier to use than wallpaper, in that it comes pre-glued. All you have to do is to apply it directly to the surface of your choice and voila.
In addition, the marbling trend is so embedded that you can buy contact paper both easily and affordably. At the higher end is this grey-hued number from Design Your Wall, which I've seen turn up on quite a few DIY projects. Since I way experimenting and didn't want to spend too much, I opted for this version, which I got from Amazon. I'm sure if you look at them in person, there may be a difference, but online, they really look comparable:
A few weeks later, my product arrived directly from the manufacturer in Germany, and I got down to work. If you're not familiar with using contact paper (as was my case), you will need the following tools:
1) Scissors to trim the paper to the shape/size you need
2) A ruler or something with an equally firm, slim edge that you can run along the paper without tearing it. You'll need this to smooth the paper out as you go along.
My technique was to peel off one edge of the paper and start pressing it down onto the table with the ruler. The ruler helps eliminate bubbles and allows you to move at your own pace. Because my surface was rounded, I decided to trim the paper into sections and lay it down piece by piece. The first section is below:
The tricky part was then lining up the remaining section so that they didn't overlap. I had to keep repositioning the paper to avoid overlays, but the contact paper allows you to do this without losing its adhesive. As you can see below, I didn't get everything to line up perfectly, but the nice thing about marble is that the pattern is irregular anyway, so it's more forgiving of mistakes!
I confess that I did suffer the occasional bubble, despite using the ruler. There are different approaches to handling these: some say you should start over, and others advise treating the bubbles directly. I opted for the latter, given that this was just a fun project. So I took a box cutter blade and made a small slit in each bubble, almost immediately smoothing it over with the ruler. This helps knit the edges back together. You can go a step further and use a hair dryer to heat the vinyl, so that the edges soften and bind together. Don't forget, it's called "paper" but it's actually more like a plastic surface so you can manipulate it differently.
Anyway, after much fussing over the bubbles, I finished up! Doesn't it look nice with the gold edges, and more elegant than the wood?
I decided to leave the top surface as is for now, though I plan to finish that too because I love the contrast of marble and brass. But it's a nice reminder of the "Before" and the "After" effects. Here's the final product, in all its glory!
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