How to Refinish a Table

Every now and then I will stroll through Goodwill searching for..."something."  Though I'm never quite sure what "something" is.  Vintage tins, classic books, dishes, tacky nick-knacks that desperately need to be spray-painted.  Sometimes there's nothing worth wasting nickles on.  But sometimes there is.  About a year ago, I found a "something" that I had been searching for a long time: a kitchen table.

There aren't many before pictures, but this little guy looked rough.  The ugly finish on the top was thin, dry and peeling off.  It wobbled terribly.  And it was heavy.  Those three things had people walking right past it.  But for the $25 price tag, I was completely willing to put in the work for a solid oak kitchen table.  It just needed a couple screws and some TLC.  So I took it to my apartment my cousins' house where it could be refinished.  (Thanks Phil and Ashleigh!)

Step One: Get the old finish off.

This can be done a number of ways.  Sometimes you can simply sand it off, but that wasn't going to work on this table.  The top has a very thin oak veneer on it (1/16") and if I were to sand it too much, I could sand the veneer off.  Plus, check out those legs!  With the curves, I wouldn't be able to take an orbital sander to those suckers, and my spaghetti arms weren't up to the hand-sand task.  So that was a no-go.  Paint stripper was my removal method of choice for this.  And it was really easy.

(Look at that finish!  It's speckle-y and splotchy and gross.  You can't even see the wood underneath.  No thank you.) 
 To the mother ship I went for a can of brush-on paint thinner, and followed the instructions...at first.  They told me to use a scraper to scrape the finish off. However, the corners of my scraper were sharp, and I didn't want it to scratch my table.  Also, it wasn't getting the stain out of the wood grain, just the surface.  So instead I used a metal brush, and it was awesome.

Eventually, I upgraded to something larger than a toothbrush.  It makes a difference, folks.  Huge.

After all of the old stain was removed, I gave the whole table a LIGHT sanding to smooth it out a bit.  How cool is this table?!  I was in love all over again.

Step Two: Condition the wood

Wood conditioner is important when you're staining pine or something that has been stripped of its old finish.  It helps the wood to take the new finish more evenly so that it doesn't look blotchy.  It's a really quick and easy step and makes a huge difference.

Step Three: Stain!

This is always my favorite part because it feels like I'm done after I stain, and I have a tendency to rush through it.  DO NOT rush through this part.  It is more important now than ever to take your time, and don't skip any steps.  The Family Handyman website has always been a great help at guiding me through the staining process.

The legs took the stain great, and only needed a couple coats.  The table top, however, was a little stubborn and needed a couple more coats to get to the same color as the legs.  But it got there eventually.

Step Four: Protect it.

Because this is a kitchen table and would be used abused a lot, I wanted to make sure that it would stay protected from spills or other accidents.  This table received three coats of polyurethane.   Here it is, in all of it's finished glory!

And there you have it!  This project took me a long time to finish because I could only make it out to my cousin's house about once a month.  But all-in-all, I'd say this was maybe a two-weekend project ONLY because this table had a lot of details that needed attention, and the time it took for the different coats to dry.  

Thanks for stopping by to keep up with the Thompsons, and stay tuned for next week's post! God bless!

PS - The wobble was fixed by adding a missing screw.  Easiest fix ever.