Dining Room Table Makeover

Have you ever had a piece of furniture in your house that you really didn’t like?

I finally had reached my limit with my Dining Room Table. It had grooves all across the top – you know the kind that leave you with permanent marks on your forearms for hours? Yeah, kind of like that!

And y’all – let me tell you, it didn’t work well with two messy boys eating. I had to carve out their crumbs with a toothpick to get the table clean. I was done.

So I went on a search and found another table on craigslist. I was able to talk the guy down from his original price and stole it for $150. Here’s the before pic

Sorry for the blurred image – it’s a copy from the seller’s post.

I brought it into the garage and asked my father in law, who was visiting to help me out. Don’t y’all put your guests to work when they visit? No??? Just me…???

So anyway, we sanded it all down.

And sanded and sanded and sanded!

This table was a soft pine and I knew that my boys were going to ding and scratch it all up, so I distressed the table with holes, marks, gashes – so it already had that weathered look.

Plus it made it easier when the first marks were made. I call it preventative insurance for the crazy outburst of fury from Momma.

I chose a deep mahogany minwax stain. I painted the bottom and chairs a creamy white. After they dried, I used Valspar glaze to antique them. And this is how it turned out.

We had some issues when it came to applying the polyurethane coat. Since the table was old and used, I had major cursing, crying problems with fish eyes (when the poly doesn’t completely take and pulls away from the wood).

But my thought was, for $150 and 2 rowdy, raucous boys, it’s gonna get beat up something good, so I gave up and labeled it as “character”.

Here are some earlier pics with close ups of the finish: