Kitchen Table Revealed

This project took two weeks to complete and many hours of painting, but the results are SO WORTH IT. I love how it turned it out. The painting probably would have gone quicker if I sprayed it but I wanted to use what I had and buy as little as possible. So I used the white primer and bright white paint I already had from the Laundry room project and brushed it on. I spent a total of $30 on stain, poly, and sand paper. 

The process started with this table and chairs and this inspiration.

I started first by sanding the top of  the table. I sanded and sanded for ever it seemed and still could not get to bare wood, so I finally decided to settle by just getting the glossy finish off and then stain it (dark mahogany.) If I had gotten to bare wood, the stain would have been a lot darker but I actually like the color it turned out. I put three coats of stain on it.

I primed the table base and chairs white and then applied two coats of white paint. The primer I used is Zinsser-no sanding required. I sanded and distressed the chairs and table base randomly, then wiped them all down with a damp cloth to remove any dust and then stained them using the same stain as the table.

Once the stain was dry I applied the first coat of poly. I loved working with the water based poly-very low smell and and the dry time was two hours before you could apply the next coat. Lowes told me I needed to apply it with a $5 brush they showed me, but Thrifty Decor Chick uses a foam brush and so I took her advice instead and it worked great-I already had the foam brush. I applied two coats of poly on everything and a third coat on the top of the table.

The most time consuming thing was painting the chairs-the slats were a pain, I didn't want any paint drips to dry so I was very careful. The second thing was just the dry time. I let each coat including the stain to dry a full day before the next one. Did I say how much I LOVE IT!!!?