Warning: Lots of pics to follow!!
You can see the before post, here: Before
Let me start out by saying that I've learned that staining is not my thing. My projects never turn out like my vision. But, they have a way of turning out how they are supposed to look. I had visions of this one with a lovely, perfectly dark stained top with a beautifully painted & distressed base. I did my research on how to stain... bought all the stuffs... then started the process:
I'm not going to go into a tutorial of how to re-stain a table top, there are thousands out there on the interwebs. But, this is how I made my old table, look even older.
Started with the sanding:
Put on a coat of 'pre-stain conditioner' and then started with the Dark Walnut stain:
Gotta love these action shots!! :-)
Let the stain set: (See the bubbles? Those are bad...)
Those bubbles mean you didnt sand off the previous finish well enough. Oh yay!!
After the stain was on, I thought the base was looking way too yellow. So, it got painted white. Oh, and the stain was VERY blotchy and yellow. I put down 3 coats of stain, and then several heavy coats of ebony wax. At that point, I fell in love, love, love with this table.
Funny things happen sometimes when redoing furniture. I did this in the garage and the temps were in the 40's or so. We brought it in and it started seeping stain. Yep, it warmed up and started pushing out some of that extra stain. Since I had used wax, and lots of it, I couldn't put anything like a polyurethane coating on it. So, I decided it needed more wax, and clear wax this time. We made a quick trip to get some and after a couple heavy coatings this is my makes my heart skip a beat farm table:
This table looks like it's been around for hundreds of years. I imagine thousands of family meals at this table. All the holiday's, triumphs and tragedies it's seen. All the conversations it has heard... I am in L-O-V-E with this table.
I still have to paint the 2 end chairs to match the base. But, I am kinda digging the black chairs and I was going to buy some covers for them... but now I'm not really sure. I'm going to live with them for a few days, then decide.
My photographer, hard at work. :-)
The moral of my story is... let the furniture talk to you and tell you how it's supposed to look. Things don't always turn out the way you hope they will, but they turn out the way they should.
Wanna see where the previous table ended up?
I'm digging this as well. :-)
Linking to:
Funky Junk
Faded Charm
Centsational Girl
French Country Cottage
Miss Mustard Seed
Remodelaholic
House of Hepworths
Everything Under the Moon