2-Step Beginner-Friendly Dining Table Makeover Kelsey, November 16, 2023November 16, 2023 Don’t you love Facebook Marketplace? I have been finding so many treasures on there lately, including this gem. This sturdy oak dining table was giving me antique farmhouse vibes – exactly what I had been looking for as a focal piece for our dining room. The best part, the table was free so you bet I hopped in my car ASAP to scoop this up. The table had great bones but man, did it need to be refinished. I am still learning the best tips and tricks when it comes to flipping and refurbishing furniture, so if you are in the same boat as me, or if you’ve never refurbished an old piece, this is the post for you. This was basically, a two-step process to strip and refinish this old oak dining table. You don’t need any experience for a project like this, just a sander, some sandpaper, and some polycrylic. Oh… and a piece of furniture to flip. Read below to see how you can turn THIS INTO THIS I don’t have great before pictures, but you can tell the dark finish was all scratched up and super worn down after years and years of use. I could have used a stripper here (for example Citristrip) to try to remove this old finish, but after testing out a section of the table with 120 grit sandpaper, the existing finish came off easily enough that I figured I’d just sand the whole piece. I haven’t yet got my feet wet (successfully) with using a stripper and if you are a bit nervous like me, then sanding is the way to go. And it’ll be a lot of sanding if this is the route you chose! STEP 1: SAND I started with 120-grit sandpaper on my orbital sander to sand the whole top. As you can see, the legs have a lot of shape to them, so I actually hand-sanded the legs as well as the rounded sides of the tabletop. Yes, hand sanding is tiresome. If you have the money, I’d suggest purchasing a detail attachment for your sander or sanding blocks that come in an assortment of shapes to hit all the contours of your piece. I; however, am always putting myself on a tight budget so I figured, labor is free. I’ll put in the extra time to hand sand with the sandpaper I already have versus buying new tools. Heads up, this took a lot of time (especially when I only had about 30 minutes before my full-time job to work on this), but I assure you, it was worth it. After hitting the entire tabletop once with the sander and hand sanding the legs, I went in with another round of sanding on the top to get down to that beautiful natural wood color. This is when I finally started using finer grit sandpaper. I did one round of 220-grit and another round of 320. Note: the lower the number grit of the sandpaper, the more coarse the sandpaper will be. Going up in grit will give you a smoother finish. Increasing the grit of the sandpaper made the tabletop so very smooth which is exactly what you want for your dining table. I was planning on tan-washing the table, as the vibe I am going for in my dining/kitchen area is neutral, but I ended up loving the natural color of the wood after sanding it bare. I especially liked how you could see some of the previous darker stain in the details of the legs. It gave it an antique look. So it was decided; no stain, just a matte topcoat.Note: If you like the idea of a stained piece, but want to keep a super light color to your wood, tan washings is when you mix water and tan paint to create a wood stain-like consistency. You then can apply this mixture as you would a stain by rubbing it onto your piece of wood furniture. This is a great method to use to minimize the orange tone in your wood. STEP 2: TOPCOAT Since this table was going to get a lot of use in a high-traffic area, I wanted to make sure it had a topcoat to protect it from water damage, stains, scratches, etc. I went a bit over the top with the topcoat and put 4 coats on the tabletop for extra protection. I used Miniwax water-based clear matte polycrylic. An oil-based topcoat would have given me more protection, but it also would have had a bit of a yellow or golden tint to it, which was the opposite of what I wanted. I liked the consistency of the water-based poly, the fact that it was crystal clear, and also that it came in a matte finish to add to the natural wood look. So far, we have used this table everyday and the poly is holding up great To apply the topcoat on the tabletop, I used a flat foam brush. Once I applied the four coats (allowing to dry between coats), I went over the poly with a super high grit sandpaper to get back to the smooth finish. I used a 1,000-grit and let me tell you, it was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Because the legs had so much contour to them, I ended up cutting up a grout sponge to use to apply the polycrylic on the legs, rather than a brush. I thought the cut-up grout sponge worked great and to my surprise, it didn’t create too many bubbles. The trick here is to not push down on the sponge too hard. This will minimize bubbles and brush strokes. I did two coats of poly on the legs. Conclusion… Refurbishing an old dining table can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The brand new ones I was seeing online similar to this one, ran anywhere from $600 to $1,000 or more. This table was free, so the only expense I had was the sandpaper (packs of 5 can be around $5), polyacrylic ($13), and the foam brush and sponge (super cheap at your local hardware store). Try hopping on Marketplace, browsing your local yard sales, or visiting your local thrift stores to see if you can score an old table needing some love and create a new focal piece for your dining room! Furniture Flips Home DIYs dining table makeoverDIYfurniture diyfurniture fliphomehome diyrefurbishrefurbished furniture
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