Hello everyone!  I have been neglecting this blog far too much lately.  I have a ton of things to blog about, just haven’t sat down to do it.  Yard projects seem to be my priority lately with summer quickly approaching.  Today I wanted to show you a quick makeover I did on a table I picked up from Craigslist last year for $20.00.

When we moved into this house a year ago, I wasn’t used to having a separate dining room.  The small dinette set that I had found a place off our kitchen, and the dining room sat empty.  With all of the expenses that come with purchasing a new home, a new dining set was not on the budget.  In an attempt to fill the space, I hastily snatched up a wood table from Craigslist.  Nothing about this table sings to me….I’m not overly found of the oval shape, the drop leaves, or the fact that it has YEARS of deep scratches, stains, and filth.  But….it was solid wood, the right size for the space and only $20.00, so it was the right choice at the time.  I always figured I would refinish it in some way and resell it when I found one I loved.  I didn’t really take any before pictures, but here it is in some of the photos that I took of the old dining room:

 The first thing I did was take it outside and give it a good sanding.  I mostly only sanded the top.  The top had deep grooves and scratches.  This is the table during the sanding process.  The white part is what I’ve already sanded.

I started with 60 sandpaper, then used 100, and finished up with 150.  I sanded the underside and legs really lightly with 150.  They didn’t really have scratches or anything, my objective was to remove the shiny finish so that the new paint would adhere to it.  I spent probably about an hour and half sanding.  It really didn’t take long.

The part that took the longest was probably trying to get rid of all of the fine dust from sanding.  You need to remove all of it before attempting to paint.  I wish I had taken better pictures of the painting part, but it’s pretty self-explanatory.  I covered the entire table with a super light coat of $.99 black satin spray paint from Wal-Mart.  It took about 4 cans to get a light coating on the entire table.  I did this because I’m cheap thrifty.  The cheap spray paint acted as a primer.  Next I went over it with Krylon black paint in a satin finish.  Krylon goes on really well and covers really nicely.  I just used super light coats over and over until the entire thing was covered.  I could have only used Krylon, but Krylon is close to $5.00 a can, so the cheap stuff cut down on the amount of coats I needed to use.  When the table had dried completely I applied three coats of wipe-on polyurethane to protect it.  I LOVE wipe on poly!  It is so easy to use and dries really evenly.  So here are a few pictures of the finished product:

 I still don’t love that table, but I think with the new black finish I can get by with it a while longer.  I don’t really have chairs for it either, but at least it fills the space for now, and for approx. $20.00 in paint, that is good enough for me.  Do you have a table that needs a quick, easy makeover?  It’s may be easier than you think.  I spent a total of about 4 hours on this, and worked on it outside while my kids played and rode their bikes. I like it so much better now!

I have some super fun things coming up to show you.  I purchased some really funky?! cool chairs from a distant family member’s estate in Washington, and my parents just brought them out here this past weekend.  Although they need a makeover desperately, I think I love them.  I can’t wait to share what I have in mind for them!  Please stay tuned!

Thanks for coming by,