Re-finishing a table and chairs, or How I learned to hate chairs.
After
We were recently given a table from the delightful
Moira Katson, writer extraordinaire,
and decided it would be a great opportunity to put all of our years of HGTV
watching to use.
The table had a very
dark finished veneer, and many years of love and use had left it a bit worn.
After perusing many, many photos of tables we
decided to re-finish the top of the table in a lighter wood color and paint the
legs a distressed white. Painting the bottom of the table turned out to be an excellent
decision, as it is far less work to prep a table surface for paint than it is
to re-finish a dark veneer into a lighter color. Sanding and painting the
chairs also required less waiting time than refinishing the table top, but sanding
and painting every single surface of an entire set of chairs will leave you
cold and dead on the inside.
Just
saying.
Note: Most of our steps were determined by picking up the
item we liked in the store (such as wood stain or paint) and reading the can
for directions and tips on how to use it and then how to seal/finish it (both
the stain we bought and the paint we bought came with suggestions for a second
product to finish them with, so we just followed along humbly). Be sure to follow any safety instructions the
products list.
1)
Re-finishing the surface of the table:
First we tried to strip the veneer using a chemical
stripper. This was as misguided as it
was unsuccessful. The chemical stripper
just removes the lacquer or protective sealant over the top of the veneer; not
the veneer itself. What we *actually*
wanted to do was remove the sealant and the top dark stained part of the veneer,
leaving the lower un-stained portion of the veneer to be re-finished. In the end the chemical stripper wasn’t even
enough to remove all the sealant, so it didn’t matter anyways.
Chemicals having failed us, we next moved on to power
sanding. This turned out to be an excellent
plan. Be sure to use proper protective
equipment! We used a 120 (‘Fine’) grit and with a few hours of elbow grease
we sanded off the sealant and then down through the stained aspect of the
veneer. Fortunately for us, the veneer
was thick enough that the dark stain only penetrated part of it, and beneath
that there was still light colored veneer covering the plywood table.
Left: a failed chemical removal. Right: Power sander glory
As we sanded deeper through the stained veneer, the color
gradually lightened until the raw veneer was exposed. Different areas of the table had stain that
penetrated deeper, however, so there were some areas that stayed darker than
others. You can keep sanding deeper in
sections where the stain penetrated further down, but you risk an uneven
surface and going all the way through the veneer and exposing the plywood
below. We might have done that a few
times. Don’t tell anyone.
Here you can see the layers of stain as it was sanded through
Sanding done, the next step was to wipe off the dust with
paper towels, then a finishing wipe with tack cloth (sticky cloth that picks up
any remaining dust).
The raw veneer was fortunately a very light tone
To re-stain the table, we used a gel stain which was a bit
darker than the raw veneer (but far lighter than the original stain). The gel stain is spread onto the surface of
the wood, then the ‘excess’ is wiped off with clean cloths after about 3
minutes. This is slightly trickier than
it sounds, because you have to wipe off evenly or you will get some areas that
are more heavily stained and splotchy, and if it dries too much you cannot wipe
it off. If you really mess up (which we
did in a couple spots) you may need to re-sand an area (by hand is enough to
take off the extra color) and re-stain.
The stain required 24 hours before we could seal it with
polyurethane. The polyurethane was then
applied over the entire table top. The
polyurethane had to set for about half a day before we could lightly sand
it and apply a second coat (note; sanding the polyurethane looked like we were
destroying it, but the second coat made it all pretty again). 24 hours later the polyurethane was set and
the table top was done! If by chance you
are applying polyurethane in a garage, make sure one section of the table isn’t
in direct sunlight and 15 degrees hotter than the rest of the table because the
polyurethane will dry unevenly and you will have to re-do it. I mean, a friend told me that.
2)
Refinishing the table legs and base
While all that was going on with the table top we were also
re-finishing the rest of the table. We
lightly sanded the legs and base of the table by hand (to help the paint to
stick to the veneer), then once again paper toweled and tack clothed the
surfaces to remove any trace of dust. We
painted the base and legs with two coats of a chalky white paint. Our plan was to hand distress the table
anyways, so we weren’t too picky about painting it perfectly. (Note; some
paints are made to be distressed, so if you are interested in distressing an
item make your life easy and chose a paint made for the job!).
We put the legs back on before painting
Once the paint had dried for 24 hours, we distressed the surface
using sand paper. Focus your distressing
in areas that naturally get bumped and chipped over time; corners, edges,
places where chairs bump the table, etc.
Start small; you can always add more distressing, but if you go too far
you have to re-paint.
Once we were happy with our distressing, we cleaned off the
dust again and we sealed the paint. The
paint we chose recommended Miniwax as a sealant, which was a new experience for
me. It is literally a wax that you rub
over all the painted surface with a clean cloth, and allow to dry for a few
minutes. Once dry, you go over it again
briskly with a clean cloth to polish it.
The polishing part worked pretty slick, but be prepared to have your
hands very waxy during the initial application.
Actually, be prepared to have everything you have ever known be covered
in wax. But really, it gets all over
your hands. Maybe a smarter person would
have worn gloves.
3) Refinishing the chairs
We had 4 old wooden chairs (mis-matched) which we wanted to
use for this table. As the chairs were
not stained the same as the new table top, we knew we would need to give them an
update to make the dining set work. As
the chairs were pretty cheap to begin with, we did not think it would be
worthwhile to try to refinish the wood to match the table top. Instead, we
decided to paint them in the same distressed chalky white as the rest of the
table.
The process for refinishing the chairs was the same as the
table base and legs: sand, clean off dust, paint, paint again, distress, clean
off dust, seal. Here’s the thing; chairs
are way more annoying than tables.
Tables have large, flat surfaces.
Chairs have a million little rounded edges and ledges and corners. It takes much longer to sand, clean, paint,
and seal a chair than a table. And there
are So Many Chairs.
From the top: Sanded but not cleaned chairs, Painted chairs, Distressed chair
Once the chair purgatory was over we went and bought
new cushions. We continued our
not-quite-matching scheme and got different colored cushions for each of the
different chair types. Originally we
were going to make our own cushions and buy our own fabric and everything, but
then we found out IKEA had cushions for our chairs for $5 each. And we were Done with dealing with the
chairs.
And that was our live-action HGTV episode! We're really happy with the results, and it was way cheaper than buying a new dining set. The total cost of supplies (paints, stains, sealants, brushes, masks, gloves, etc) was ~$100 since we were able to borrow a power sander. I have a new-found appreciation for working with furniture. And a new-found hatred of chairs.
(PS be sure to check out Moira Katson; writer of novels and donator of tables)
