Gold and Marble Home Office Makeover

Y'all. I honestly CANNOT believe how well this week's project turned out! It features white marble (Lord have mercy) and gold (hallelujah). So as you can imagine- the results are heavenly!

These pieces are nothing to write home about. First we have this inexpensive desk that was found by the dumpster at our old apartment. Yeah. Honestly it was in great shape when we found it. I think it was one of those instances where someone got it for while they were in school and then left it for someone else. (Thanks, stranger!) The whole desk is black painted metal. There's a retractable writing area and the desktop is a piece of tinted glass.

Our second piece is a vintage record table that we found in the attic of Claiborne's parents' house. As you will probably agree, this piece was just BEGGING to be redone.

If you would like to watch the Youtube video for this project, here's the link-


Marble contact paper and gold spray paint. Yeah. That's literally it. The only tools I needed are the screw drivers to take apart the desk, scissors/craft knife, and a plastic card to smooth out the contact paper.

 S T E P S

1. Wipe down everything with soapy water or whatever cleaning solution you prefer. The old record table was pretty dusty and the desktop needed a good wipe-down.

2. Remove the pieces you DON'T want spray painted or cover them with painter's tape if you can't remove them. For my furniture pieces this was just the glass desktop.

3. Spray paint yo' thangs. I'm honestly trying so hard to break this project down into steps. Let that paint dry and touch up if you need, my friend.

4. Cover your desired surfaces with the marble contact paper. I'll admit, this was tricky. And in the end I'd like to do this step over because it took a while to get used to applying the contact paper. Here are some tips-

a. Try to cover surfaces that, when covered, will actually look like marble. You want the end result to look like real marble- which is usually pretty thick! Our desktop was a little too thin for this, but we still love the transformation. Also try to cover elements that have flat & straight surfaces/edges because curves of any kind are a pain to cover.

b. Precut the paper to roughly the size you need. HOWEVER cut at least two or three inches in each direction because the extra material will be what keeps the ends of the paper down.

c. Keep a credit card or squigee handy to avoid air bubbles. I still got air bubbles. So...

d. Keep a straight pin or needle handy to pop the air bubbles if needed. Massage those babies until you have the air worked out of the pinhole.

e. I didn't try this tip, but I read it on Pinterest somewhere- keep a hair dryer handy to warm the contact paper as you work with it. This should soften the vinyl enough to be a little more pliable while also heating up the adhesive to help avoid those pesky air bubbles.

Aaaaaannnnddddd that's it! So all of this to say- spray paint it and cover it with a giant marble sticker! I did add a few other special touches. I made over a desk lamp that I've had for about 8 years, and I also spray painted a couple desk organizers. I had to stop myself from painting EVERYTHING gold because this particular spray paint was so magical! But I soon realized that there actually can be too much gold.

Until next time, X
- Blake