When we first moved into our apartment, three-ish months ago, I began perusing my favorite thrift stores for a kitchen table that would better fill out large eating area and lend itself to hosting larger groups more easily. I did not have any luck. I did, however, come across a neat little table that I felt had potential.
(sorry for the background mess)
I paid $30.00 for it. Simon thinks that is a little steep, but I felt that, because it was solid wood and I would be able to reuse some of the hardware, it was an okay price.
The first step was to disassemble the table and sand off all of the individual pieces.
Sanding. Took. Forever.
Most of the pieces (the legs and the skirt and all of the edges) had to be sanded by hand. Plus, I did it in the Kitchen so I could do it whenever I had some extra time which made electric sanding impossible- too messy.
One Saturday I set up shop outside Simon's office and tackled all of the larger flat surfaces.
Tabletop before and after
Okay. Sanding is done. Now onto painting. It took me awhile to choose a paint color. I knew what color I wanted, but it was just a matter of finding it. I picked up probably 50 paint swatches from Lowe's and Home Depot. Once I narrowed it down to 5 or 6, I left them on the coffee table and every couple of days would just decide.. okay no, not this one. Until I only had one left.
Inefficient and effective :)
Once I had decided and went to Lowe's to buy it, I changed my mind. Ha.
I went with "Garden Sprout" by Valspar
Which was one shade lighter than the one front and center.
And I chose a Dark Walnut stain
The painting process left our kitchen in quite the construction zone. Life took on an obstacle-course feel for a couple of days. Simon was quite the trooper, I must say. :)
I put two coats on everything and then coated it with 2 more coats of Polyacrylic for protection. The Polyacrylic really makes a difference in protecting it from little scuffs and divots. I would always recommend taking the time to do that!
I also did two coats of stain. The bottom shelf, with only one coat, looked much darker than the top after two. It is the difference between hard and soft wood, so there isn't anything to be done, but i was a little disappointed. The bottom shelf ( seen above) is more the color I'd hoped for. I really like the look of dark walnut wood.
Putting it BACK together was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The top surface had come unglued over the years, so first I had to glue it back together. Then, gluing all of the pieces together and making sure it all was squared up and everything... sheesh. Simon helped me a lot with that. You have to clamp everything while the glue is drying to achieve the necessary amount of pressure. Attaching the top to the base was a challenge because the previous screw wholes weren't accurate anymore, once it was all re-glued and reassembled. Plus, I don't think it was really centered initially. I say all of that to say, I could not have done the most important part without his help!
Putting it BACK together was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The top surface had come unglued over the years, so first I had to glue it back together. Then, gluing all of the pieces together and making sure it all was squared up and everything... sheesh. Simon helped me a lot with that. You have to clamp everything while the glue is drying to achieve the necessary amount of pressure. Attaching the top to the base was a challenge because the previous screw wholes weren't accurate anymore, once it was all re-glued and reassembled. Plus, I don't think it was really centered initially. I say all of that to say, I could not have done the most important part without his help!
I also decided that I wanted to try my hand at drawer lining. I read about several different methods of drawer lining. I decided to go with a simple scrapbook paper lining. I used Elmer's Spray adhesive and this printed paper. It took 4 12x12 sheets overlapping to fill the space.
I used this blog as a reference. How To Line A Drawer
The paper cutting did NOT go as simply for me as it seemed to in this tutorial, but it could have easily been an operator error :)
Here is how everything turned out:
Lined drawer with new hardware from Hobby Lobby
I was really excited that all of the original hinges were in working order. I think it gives it more character.
Over all costs:
$30.00 Table
$ 4.00 Spray adhesive
$ 2.00 Paper
$15.00 Paint (quart)
$ 6.00 Stain (quart)
$10.00 Screws (I chose to buy a whole $6 box of the large screws just to have on hand)
$ 6.00 Knobs
$73.00
We already had the sand paper and polyacrylic from many other projects, but it is about $30.00/qt
I had a lot of trouble getting a photo that really captures the way the piece looks: color, size, etc. This is as close as I could get. The bottom shelf, in actuality, is NOT so much darker than the top, as it looks in all of these pictures. The table top color is a different color in reality, and the bottom really is just a bit darker.
Well that is the end to my latest project. I'm quite glad to be through with it, but it was a really fun process. I don't think I will be taking on any more projects quite this time consuming and space evading until we have a home of our own with a yard and driveway :)
