Refinishing a Kitchen Table

Howdy y’all.

I bet you were starting to think that we weren’t really still over here workin’ our booties off, huh?

Yeah.

Well. You were wrong. ;)

And, I know that this blog is sort of annoying because I just show before and after pictures … but … that’s all I’ve got for you today too. See, here’s the deal: the whole step by step tutorial thing isn’t really me because – truth be known – I have no earthly clue how to do this stuff. Pretty much I tell my husband my idea and then he spends days and weeks executing my idea in one way or another.
And … to be honest … I’m afraid of manual labor. I’m not a snob. And I’m not spoiled or pampered or anything. I don’t go to salons. I’ve never heard of most designer brands.

However.

Please hear me when I say this: manual. labor. is. not. my. thing.

Like, at all.

So, in order for me to give you instructions, I have to ask Superman for step by step details and then type them out here. Because there’s no way I’m showing my face in a 110 degree garage unless I absolutely have to; otherwise, I know I’d get roped into my horrible ideas ALL the time.

So, having said that … please no hate mail about how I don’t show you how to do stuff. You hear me, Rebecca? ;)

By now, you’ve all seen my sad, sad, sad kitchen table. If not, feast your eyes:


What these pictures don’t show is all the thousands of nicks. Scrapes. Fork marks. Teeth marks. Rubber cement marks. Sharpe scribbles. And, white rings from eating hot pizza on paper plates (don’t you hate that?!). This table was in BAD shape. (Somehow these pictures hide that nightmarish problem)


Lucky for us, we bought this bonafide Pottery Barn gem off my sister when she moved to a smaller house and couldn’t fit it. That was 7 years ago … and 2 kids ago. And many many preschool students ago. And, lucky for us, Pottery Barn used solid wood on this kitchen table and benches.

So, Superman sanded the entire thing down to the bones. And when I say he sanded, I mean he SANDED. This isn’t a project where you can just lightly rough up the lacquer. He was re-staining and refinishing the table.

And, since he is Superman, he took the entire table and both benches completely apart, sanded them to raw wood, stained them, and then lacquered everything.

He used a Minwax Wood Finish in a Dark Walnut color to stain the table. Then, he sanded all the fine wood hairs until the table was smooth again. Then, he applied one coat of Minwax Tung Oil with GLOSS finish. When it was dry, he sanded everything down with steel wool and applied a second coat. When that was dry, he sanded it all down with steel wool again and went for a third coat. He repeated the process until the table had 6 coats of Tung Oil. No, I’m not joking. The thing shines like glass and looks amazing.

Here, have a looksie:



And how much more awesome does my little shelf/bar/munchkin table look with that bangin’ new kitchen table next to it? Way more awesome.



Wanna know how much it cost us to get a new kitchen table and benches? $40. + a lot of dedication, sweat, patience, sweat … sweat … and sweat.



For.Ty. Dollars, y’all. Boom. (Ignore the toy dinosaur taking a break on the back bench … I gave him permission)



Now kids … what have we learned today? Buy. Good. Furniture. Because your kids are going to beat it to hell … and when they do … you can sand it all down and refinish it for pennies; instead of forking out more money to buy another table for them to trash.

As always, he did a great job! Sorry, my non-tutorials suck. But, y’all can TOTALLY do this. Refinishing a table doesn’t require a ton of skill or finesse or brains or brawns. Like the rest of our projects, you’ve just gotta be patient. Slow and steady wins the race. :D

Here’s the before and after:

Staining your worn out fence for dirt cheap …

Okay. So this project is no where near as fun to look at as a kitchen or bathroom remodel … but nevertheless, it was on our list and we found a way to save a boat load of money … so here we are.

As I’ve said before, we bought this house 6 1/2 years ago. What I haven’t said is WHY we bought this house. I grew up in a much more urban area than I live in now … and my husband grew up in the country. We compromised … and moved slightly farther out, but I didn’t cave and buy a barn chock full of barn animals either. However, we did buy a home with a decent sized yard. The tax documents say that our home lot is 1/2 an acre. For those of you living on farms … stop laughing. For my more urban self, 1/2 acre is about a 1/2 acre more than I was looking for. So, in a nutshell, we bought the house for the yard. Not the brass. Not the white Formica. Not the builder grade carpet. It was the yard. We bought it for the yard. And never looked back. ;)

Said 1/2 acre also comes with a LOT of wood fence. So much wood fence, that it required 25 gallons of paint/stain to cover it. Fence stain isn’t cheap, in case you haven’t priced it out yet. So … after pricing it out 6 1/2 years ago … we promptly gave up on the idea of spending $900 on fence stain. Yes, folks. I said $900. On. Fence stain.

So, fast forward 6 1/2 years … and our fence was looking nice and … nasty. Ugly. Gray. Worn. Weathered. We knew we were going to have to replace the whole thing soon … because we never did splurge on the $900 for fence stain.

Then, about 6 months ago, a big storm knocked down the entire back side of our fence. We were exposed. Luckily, Superman has salvaged a bunch of steel fence posts from the neighborhood (HOA) fence that was being replaced prematurely (because there wasn’t a thing wrong with these steel fence posts). So, he set the steel fence posts in concrete and bought new cross panels. Then, he took off each and every picket, pulled all the nails out … and screwed each one back up. (He’s only done this along the back side so far, but we have steel posts for the entire perimeter … another day … another project)

Then, he bleached the fence, to wash out all the old gray. And then. THEN, Superman got one of his best ideas yet. He noticed during a routine Home Depot visit that they were selling several 5 gallon buckets of fence stain for $20 (they are usually $180/each). Home Depot calls these particular buckets … ‘Oops’ paint. It’s paint that people have purchased but didn’t like, so they took the paint back for whatever reason. Only problem? Every color is completely and totally horrid. Like, so ugly that you have NO idea why anyone would have thought to purchase it in the first place.

However … If you buy 5 different colors and dump them all together … and then add a little tint … you end up with a decent color. And, you also end up with 25 gallons of said decent color. So … that is just what Superman did. He bought 5 separate 5 gallon buckets and dumped them all into a big trash can (probably a 35 gallon can). Then, he stirred and mixed and mixed and stirred. And finally … for the grand total of $100 … we had the perfect color and enough stain to make our ugly old fence look new again. Take a look for yourself. :D
Here is the fence before (we did have to replace about 40 pickets because there were about 40 overall that just weren’t worth salvaging) the stain, but after the bleach process:



And here it is after the stain:



See. There are still a few wobbly looking fence posts, but those will soon be replaced with steel ones anyway. For now … it did the trick and fixed a HUGE eye sore … for very little money, considering how big our fence actually is. I am only showing you a tiny little corner of this great big old fence. :D

So, y’all … run, run, run. Find yourself some ‘Oops’ paint. And fix your old worn out fence. You won’t regret it!



Total cost: $100. For about 1,000 linear feet. Give or take a couple hundred. Brilliant.