The DIY coasters above were stained with the same white stain we used for the counters. The walnut stained coasters are shown below:
It felt good to get that out of my system, but the more natural finish has won me over!
Here's how to make your own solid wood hex coasters:
We started with this piece of wood, but I could have easily have worked with any scrap piece - any type, any thickness - but the thinner, the better. Our piece was pretty smooth but if you start with something rougher, you might want to plane it or even just run a belt sander over it.
With wood in hand, we did some figurin'. Hubby used a sliding T bevel to figure out the angles on our hexagon coasters. You can also kick it old school with a protractor and straight edge - or bust out some high school geometry and just a ruler if you're super bad-ass.
With the hexagon figured out and drawn onto the first section, Hubby used a bandsaw to cut out the first coaster. After that, we traced the first coaster on subsequent lengths of the board and Hubby kept cutting.
This was such a fun and easy woodworking project - great for beginners!
After cutting the wood hex shapes, the edges were a little rough so I smoothed them over with sandpaper (first a 120-grit and then a sheet of 220). I softly rounded the edges and sanded the surface as well.
For the dark coasters I used Restor-A-Finish in Walnut. I used left over Saman Whitewash on the other set. Here's what they looked like with just stain (after one coat):
Once the stain was dry, I painted the edges of the walnut-stained coasters. I experimented a little, using both acrylic paint and household latex paint - the latter was terrible: super watery and took many coats. The acylic paint from the craft store did a phenomenal job, especially the copper. I used a small artist's brush and just free-handed it, painting the bottom surface too, just for fun.
Lastly, I gave each side and edge two thin coats of clear wood finish. I gave the coasters a light sand between coats, using 220 grit sandpaper. This is the same finish we used on the floating credenza top and I really like it because it dries in a flash. The only tricky thing is that you have to apply it really thinly, otherwise it shows yellow (which it's not supposed to).
And, voila - the painted edge I was so eager to have:
Flipped over it's a totally different look: it becomes a colourful set of one-of-a-kind coasters!
Here's one last look at the white-washed ones:
If you make some, you could add some felt to the bottom (like I did to my tile-turned-trivet).
I have definitely just written the longest post on the easiest project, but I'm enjoying chatting about something so simple (and so complete!) because many of our lakehouse projects have been so involved. This was easy peasy, and I learned a valuable lesson: turns out Mom's still always right.
Which do you prefer? White-washed or walnut-stained (with a painted edge)?
