I had read a magazine article about covering items of furniture with fabric and wanted to try it myself. My daughter had one of those folding TV dinner type tables and gave it to me so I thought that would be a great place to start.

I had a piece of striped fabric that matched the fabric I had used to cover the chair. The colours were fuschia and greens so I bought a couple of sample pots of pink and green emulsion and used these to paint the legs. I then made sure I had steam pressed the fabric very flat with no creases and using a paint brush I brushed an even layer of PVA glue over the top of the wooden table surface. I then positioned the fabric and smoothed it down onto the table top. I then turned the table upside down, placed a thin layer of glue on the back of the table and smoothed the rest of the fabric down, sticking a length of ribbon to cover the edges of the fabric.

Once the glue was dry I sprayed the whole of the table with matt varnish. I did this in the garden as the spray goes everywhere. Next time I will use clear brush on varnish as the spray did not give a sufficiently thick cover. I had to spray the legs too as I had used emulsion paint and not wood paint and did not want the paint to rub off on the carpet.

My daughter loved the table and so we found another one for £2 at a car boot sale and so my next project is to cover that in some duck egg blue fabric to match her living room, however she wants plain white legs so I shall use the eggshell white I have and so I won’t need to varnish the legs.

And here is the one I made for my daughter.