Paint-chipped-table?

March 14, 2007 1:56 AM

Cool Table Filter: Table at the outside bar (near waterfall) at the Wynn. Resin + paint chips = awesome?

Sipping on a $12 Mojito outside of the Wynn bar on their balcony that overlooks the waterfall, I noticed the tables we were at were very, very cool. They looked to be composed of either small pieces of paper, or paint chips, stuck in a resin and turned into table form.

I don't think this was a print, simply because you could look dead on from the side and see depth with the actual pieces. (The tables simply were too chaotic and random to easily compare them side by side and determine that too, so I'm further espousing the belief that they aren't a simple print.)

All in all a very cool table, but I can't even begin to think of where to start finding somewhere with these. Any chance they're NOT custom? Perhaps exceedingly common and available at my local Ikea? Could I be so lucky?

For your perusal, Top view, Angle view, and a Flat view

(The top view makes for a cool wallpaper. Email me if you want the full-sized, 2048 x 1536 image for your desktop or anything, email in profile.)

posted by disillusioned to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Wow. I've never seen anything like that ready-made, but I have worked with resin/epoxy on tabletops before and I am fairly confident you could do this with a little practice and experimentation. There's got to be someone online who's done it and has documented some best practices for creating the frame to pour into (I can tell you that tape doesn't work very well). The stuff sets up pretty fast, so I think you'd have to work in several phases to get 3-dimensional layers of the paint/plastic/paper/wax/whateverthatis. Learning to pour and cure without getting bubbles is also a little tricky. This DIY Network article is probably a good place to start.

Also you could probably find someone to do it for you, with the right search terms. I can't figure out what those are, though.

I've been doing a lot of furniture shopping online and in person lately and there's definitely nothing like that in your average normal-people furniture store. Everything's all wood or granite these days.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:57 AM on March 14, 2007

You could perhaps make one using this.
posted by essexjan at 6:01 AM on March 14, 2007

It looks like an expoxy resin table top as described here. A google on "epoxy tabletop" will give you a wealth of information on techniques and materials.
posted by TedW at 7:25 AM on March 14, 2007

I wonder if this is possible with paper - you could use photos, pieces of photos, business cards, postcards, loveletters, cool ads or other ephemera.

I mean all cut up into 1 x 3 pieces and put in all random-like, and deep similar to the paintchips, not like this.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 7:45 AM on March 14, 2007

Essentially you'd be doing a decoupage before applying the wear coating. Shellac is really forgiving, you could build up the layers in shellac and then epoxy over for the depth.
posted by Mitheral at 11:54 AM on March 14, 2007