Table project

As I mentioned earlier, Chris and I bought a new (to us) kitchen table and chairs at a big yard sale almost two months ago. The colors weren't great but it is in decent shape, so we decided to get our act together and fix them up. In case you are keeping track, this will, in effect, be the first handy-ish project we've taken on as a married couple. Hard to believe, I know, but we've always rented and we've always been of the mindset that we're going to be leaving a place eventually so why worry about furniture that fits or looks nice. Well, since there is a possibility that we could be in this house longer than a year, we've decided to settle in. We still haven't really considered painting the walls (mostly because they were freshly painted when we moved in, a decent neutral color, and I am not thrilled at the thought of having to paint them back in the event that we do only stay here a year), but painting an ugly colored table is doable.

Anyway, we have been (very slowly) working on this project on the weekends since we bought the table. The paint was a dark green color and the stained portions looked orangish:

We spent the first and second weekend stripping the wood. As you can tell from the picture below, it didn't go well on the first pass, until we got into a groove and figured out the most efficient way to do it:

Then we sanded down all the wood so that when we started painting, the paint would stick. Unfortunately, because the original paint was so dark, the dust from sanding got pretty much everywhere - the deck, our clothes, hands, face, etc.

After all the sanding, we started painting. Since nothing we have really matches, we decided to go with an off-white color (but mostly white) that would match whatever we put it next to. Painting took several coats, and to be honest, still needs another coat, but if you're not looking too closely, you probably won't notice. Since I'm tired of painting, so I'll probably wait quite awhile before attempting another coat!

Then we went out and bought some stain to re-stain the base of the chairs and top of the table.

Coat number 2:

It came out looking pretty decent (a big improvement from how it started at least!), but as with the paint, the stain needs another coat, as well, mainly because I want it to be a bit darker.

This project took far longer than I had anticipated just because I was only able to make progress on the weekends, and not even every weekend at that. Not sure when I will get around to those final coats of paint and stain, but in the meantime, we've eaten on it, and it worked out fine. Good enough for now! It will probably be another while before Chris and I decide to take on another project like this :)