Cheri Peoples


Table Renovation

by CHERI on July 31, 2016

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We had already made an offer on this house, had a lot of our boxes packed but we weren’t done packing, when I decided to have a DO-OVER with this table.  My husband thought I was nuts- there was still so much to do but I knew once we moved it would take forever to get it done. We would have projects for a year at the new house. (Between our area and the in-laws quarters we have approx. 8000 sq feet.-LOTS OF PROJECTS.)

We bought this table, brand new, unfinished, when we were engaged. My father-in-law finished it for us. He did a beeswax finish and it was beautiful.  The leaf in the middle of that first photo, was his handy work. We got a lot of use out of it and then a few years later we moved into a home with a smaller area for the table and we liked it without the leaf. We had our 2 oldest boys and with lots of clean up, it needed refinished.  The problem was, with 2 little boys I did not have time to do a hand rub-in wax job, so I sanded it and put a varnish on it. It was just ok , it had a yellowish tint that I was not in love with but I would settle for lack of time. (I did not do the leaf at that time.)

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The hearth room and kitchen at the new Bungalow are one open area and we decided to spread things out and have this table in the hearth room area. You can check out the kitchen HERE. You can get a sneak peak of more of the hearth room HERE.

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Fast Forward YEARS LATER and here we are- ready to move and I decide it is time to redo the table and leaf, in the middle of packing, searching for new light fixtures etc for the new house– yeah kind of crazy but I’m so glad I did it.
I used my Trans-tint dye from Rockler in the Dark Mission Brown. I love this dye. I also used the trans-tint on the ottoman I made. You can check it out HERE.  The trans-tint can be applied straight from the bottle or you can add water to lighten it. It’s not a stain but a tint– I love it.

Let’s back up just a little- or a lot.  It took a lot of sanding- every time I thought I had it down to bare wood, I found out otherwise. I would put the trans-tint on and you could see where the wax was and was not-my table looked like a giraffe and that was not the look I was going for. Around the 10th time, I had my husband look at the raw wood and he was convinced that I had it all off but once that trans-tint went on, it was obvious. It got better with each sanding but I sanded it down about 25 times. That wax was deep in the wood and was coming to the surface each time but we finally got it all off.

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Once I had it all sanded, and the trans-tint applied so that it was the color I wanted, I gently sanded off on some of the edges and then reapplied to make other areas darker so they had the same look as the chairs. The table is a little darker but you wouldn’t notice it unless you looked close.  You can see that the table and leaf all look the same- wheh!!!

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When we moved back to Kansas City, we bought new chairs and the wood on the chairs and this table were different grains and colors but I was pretty sure I could get them looking similar. Let me tell you-a wood chair is not a wood chair. These chairs are so comfortable to sit in and they are solid- no wobbly backs or legs. We got the chairs even though we were dealing with 2 different woods– they were that comfy.  If you are looking for great chairs- We got the chairs HERE. They run about $350 a chair.

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I think we got them pretty close. What do you think?

*The chairs were a combination of black and wood so I added black to the skirt of the table.

I finished the table with Rockler’s Deft Wood Finish.

We are thoroughly enjoying our hearth area.

I hope you are inspired to tackle your next project. You can do it.

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