#11...table transformation

This table has been in my brother-in-law Jesse's family for over 3 decades. His parents bought it in the 1970's from a family that had owned it for years, so I believe it dates back to the 1950's. It made its way to my sister Julie and Jesse's dining room, and as you can see in these before pics, it was in need of some love and attention.

While visiting this past week, Tyler and I took on the project of sanding and restaining the table. There were a few unexpected bumps in the project, but I think the end result breathed new life into the table and will service their dining room nicely for years to come.

I have refinished tables before, and thought that this project would be able to be finished in 12 hours or so, however, it ended up stretching over a few days, and I was putting the last coat of Wipe-on Poly on as we were walking out the door to the airport to head home.

The table was somewhat resistant to the new stain even once we had sanded it totally down, which was really baffling to me, until I learned that Jesse's father had refinished a few of the sections of the table in the 1970's using surf board resin that he had on hand. Because of the effect the surfboard resin had on the wood, the first few coats of MinWax stain soaked in very unevenly and would not dry in some spots. Despite that the can claimed it should dry in 4-6 hours, the stain was still very tacky after 20 hours with two fans blowing on it.

Originally, we were hoping to attain a dark uniform stain using the MinWax color Jacobean, but because the stain had trouble penetrating the sanded wood, we ended up with a more variegated, weathered look. We choose a flat black paint for the legs to give it the feel of an iron base. The project cost about $80 for stain, paint, poly, rags, brushes, rubber gloves and a hand sander. I did the staining and painting indoors, but we were careful to open doors and windows to air out the stain smells. In total, this project ended up taking about 15 hours of man power and 3 days of in between drying time.

I am headed to New York tomorrow to help my cousin outfit her nursery, so I am off to work on some artwork to hang above her crib. I'll be posting DIY efforts from her space next week.