Farmhouse Table Makeover
Greetings friends! As I sit on my couch and drink my coffee while watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I tried to think up an idea for my very first blog post. I have quite an archive of projects that’ve been half shared. I also have a large list of projects I want to document for the first time ever. But today I wanted to share an oldie, as I have the before, during, and afters all completely ready to go!
When my husband, Devin, and I moved into our first home in 2018, we had to shop for a lot of furniture. We only had a bed and a couple dressers. Our family gifted us so many hand-me-downs including a sectional, coffee tables, work tables, and more.
We desperately needed a kitchen table though. I set out to Goodwill to hunt down a table with confidence in my ability to transform it to fit into our style. Well, lo and behold, I found one! It was a plain, blond wood, table for a whopping $30. It didn’t have any chairs, but I would worry about that later.
We bought the table and brought it home. Prepare for heartbreak….
That table didn’t even remotely fit into our dining room. We lived in quite a humble abode at the time and our dining room was just as quaint. I remember Devin’s parents coming over to take a look and suggested that we swap table with the one at their house! Theirs had a leaf in it, and we were hopeful that by removing the leaf, we would be able to make it work. So we swapped the tables and the major projects began.
With the same orangey blond wood in need of a makeover, I began by sanding away all the gloss and color.
Yeah that’s right, you’re seeing me sand INSIDE the house. Big mistake. Huge. Please for the love of all that’s good, learn from my mistake.
I sanded down the top, the apron, and the legs. I also sanded down the chairs as I wanted to make them over as well. I ended up staining all of them with Minwax’s Dark Walnut wood stain. (linked below)
Now let me tell you, the legs to this table were a PAIN. Their rounded nature made them nearly impossible to sand off. I, in a panic and impatience to move on and finish my project, ignored this and went on with staining the legs. At this point, I thought that I wanted it all stained, and not to paint the bottom white, as many farmhouse tables were.
Well if you’ve ever stained before, you might know the end to this tale… The stain couldn’t soak into the wood, because I could never penetrate the protective seal still on the legs. my stain wiped on, and became horribly tacky. I left if alone for a bit and tried to convince myself it would take care of itself. Obviously I was wrong. I then did the most Nikki thing I could do and pulled out nail polish remover and began wiping away the tacky stain from the legs, because it’s the first thing I thought of. Unconventional, yet not unsuccessful. I resorted to the fact that I’d have to paint and in the end, I’m so glad I did. It looks so much better. I used a can of white paint I had on hand, which was glossy trim paint. I’m assuming one day it will wear down and I’ll have to redo the bottom, but that’s future Nikki’s problem.
I sealed the table with Minwax oil based polyurethane (linked below). It’s been a while but I believe I did two coats, sanded with a 220 grit, applied a third coat, and possibly sanded again with a 220, but probably very gently with my hands and not my electric sander.
As I moved onto the chairs, I desperately wanted to rid them of their outdated green plaid fabric. I decided to use a sheet of beige dropcloth from Lowes. I left the green plaid fabric on underneath. I cut out squares of dropcloth large enough to fit around the cushion, then used a staple gun to attach the pieces to the chair.
And now we arrive at our finished product!
I absolutely love this table. I left the chairs pretty rustic. My mom always says that rustic just allows room for bumps and scratches in everyday wear and tear. She’s the best. Text your mom and tell her you love her.
I did all of this in August of 2018 and right now, almost two years later, the table and chairs are holding up wonderfully.