Table Redo Part 2

Okay, so I have previously revealed to you my plan for this awesome thrift store find. And I have begun to work on it and it has been beyond therapeutic! Working with things that you get to make into your own piece of heaven is always an amazing feeling! So first things first, let me show what I have done to get things moving.

THE PREP WORK

I have refinished a lot of furniture over the last 10 years. I have done this by sanding, stripping and sometimes just painting over the top of the existing paint. It all depends on what I want the finished product to look like for which method I decide to do. In this case, I combined all 3. 

The Legs

The legs were awesome as is. As in the nicks, dents and grooves were perfect and I wasn't about to touch them to ruin them. So I knew that I was going to paint over them. No sanding, no stripping. This is where we have a curtain call for a handy little product we call Denatured Alcohol. I don't know exactly how it works, but it does. You get an old rag and saturate it with the denatured alcohol. Thoroughly wipe down the surface you are going to paint over. This type of alcohol seems to penetrate through the existing paint (whether it is acrylic, latex, oil, or enamel) and preps the surface for the new paint to adhere. And adhere it does.

I used Rustoleum spray paint in Almond. I feel like their paint seems to have more saturation of color so more covering power, and their color is just pure color. You get excellent coverage and you only have to wait minutes in between coats verses hours. Always read the back of the can of the spray paint you are using. Not all spray paint is the same. And if you do not re coat within the window of time on the back of the can- WAIT. Always wait. If you don't, then you run the risk of it peeling or not adhering, or scratching off. Just trust me on this.

The legs took me a grand total of like 60 minutes.

The Tabletop

This was a little more of a delicate part of the table. I needed to strip down the paint because I wanted the top to be a wood color. I didn't want to sand it down, and I am really glad I didn't. It would have been a huge expense in just sand paper. I tried a small part and it kept gumming up underneath the paper. So I got out the paint stripper. The one I use is spray able and I am all about easy. I sprayed it on the table top. By the time I got to the end of the table it had been the 15 minute wait time to start scraping off the paint. I recommend gloves. I don't know what is in paint stripper, but I know there is enough of something to eat away years and layers of paint. So I am sure eating through your delicate skin is no problem (yes, it burns...badly).

I got a really nice surprise as I scraped off the paint. There was a perfectly oiled butcher block like table top. Who covered this up?!? Well, no wonder the sand paper was gumming up. It smelled like Danish Oil under the black paint. So I am sure that was another reason the paint came off so easily. There were parts that left little flecks of the black paint behind. But I couldn't have placed them more perfectly. My husband, that is new to this DIY redo stuff kept asking if I was gonna get it off. I just kept laughing at him. Now that he sees it... he gets it. I did have to sand a little bit as there were places there were knots in the woods that seemed to have the sap disappeared with the paint stripper. But not much effort was put into the prep of the table top.

Next, I wanted to darken up the wood a bit, and even it all out. Not to mention the fact I am kind of picky about the color of "wood" I have in my house. It can't be too yellow or too red... just a good neutral.

So when you apply wood stain in this type of setting, the method is pretty important, to me at least. This table has all these nicks and grooves in the top and I want to make sure these depressions get the stain in them and that this color gets left behind. I use one of those cheapo little brushes from your local home improvement store to wipe a thick layer of the stain on going with the grain. Then I use a rag (that I plan on throwing away) to wipe the stain and really rub it into the wood going against the grain. I then finish it up by wiping with the grain, again. After this, I let it dry. Since I did this in sections, I used this rag to wipe onto the almond color legs to accentuate the worn look on the legs and give it a nice patina.

FINISH

At this point, if you had no intention of putting anything else on the table top, you could just seal it. So if you have no desire to paint a piece of furniture with a map or anything else, I will mention finishing before the hand painting. I have used polyurethane and polycrylic, and my vote is for polycrylic. It doesn't yellow and when it dries, it is really hard and durable for high traffic areas like tables and chairs. BUT, there is a catch... polycrylic adheres best to water based stains and paints. And if there are impurities on the wood, it tends to draw them out and bind to them instead of the wood. So in this project, I used polyurethane. 

As for the chairs, I am going to refinish 4 of my chairs. The others are going to be used to create benches for the long sides of the table. I am really excited (and you should be to, because it is going to take your breath away!) for this as I am going to paint a bunch of different colors (imagine coral, gold, teal, olive green, and a brick red). So yeah, this project still has a ways to go... but it will be oh so very worth it!

HAND PAINTING & STENCILING

At this point I hand drew out the map using a pencil. I tried as best I could to come as close as possible to what the map looked like. Of course, I am not perfect, so there are errors, and mistakes.

 I planned the vinyl, and positioning of all the stencils.

Here is a close up of the compass rose in the upper right corner of the table.

And this is a close up of the map name I designed. it is stenciled in the top middle of the table.

I used a very small brush (a nail striper) to trace the lines of everything that was not a stencil. I used a more full (eye) liner brush for the pink, green, and yellows. And just a regular paint brush for the stenciling.


  

I peeled the stencils while they were still wet so that the paint didn't peel off with the stencil when it dried. Once this was all dry, I began applying the polyurethane.

And after hours of waiting to dry, I had to call in an army of guys to lift this heavy thing into the kitchen. We had only minor injuries... :)

I apologize for the dark pictures, but it is winter in Utah. The sun goes down early, and I have an east facing house with a covered porch. It is just not a great combo for will lit photos.

This one gives you a view of the chairs I still have to refinish....

Thanks for stopping by... I better get going! I am really excited to get started on those chairs!!

#rustoleum #tableredo #awholelotofschmidt #tableredowithvintagedutchmap