Dining Table Re-Makeover

I finally did it! I have been talking about it long enough. I refinished my dining room table. Wow! I am glad it is over. I know you remember this table from my last makeover post. It has been through a lot of makeovers through the years. The table was due for another refinish. I decided to leave the table apron and legs white. I just tackled refinishing the top. I wanted a light neutral wood color, almost a driftwood color. I taped off the apron and got to work.

 

I thought I was going to just sand it down and put on a new stain. Well, I started sanding with 100 grit sandpaper. I quickly realized I would be sanding for days before I got anywhere. I was thinking the table was so old and the finish was already peeling off, that the sanding would take it right off. I was wrong, so wrong. I decided to try Citristrip. I put a thick coat on and let it sit for an hour and a half. I came back to scrape it off and the table was still really cherry looking. It was not taking off all the stain. I did another coat of Citristrip and that still did not take it all off. I was in my Mother-in-Law’s shed. I looked around and found some very old paint stripper. It was almost gone but I got what I could on a small section of the table. Sure enough, I could finally start to see some raw wood. WOO HOO! I went to the store and grabbed another can of Klean Strip Premium Stripper and put on a thick coat. I scrapped it off to find the raw wood. I then took 150 grit sandpaper and gave it a good sanding. I was little sad to realize that the raw wood still had a lot of red in it. I wiped it all down with Mineral Spirits and let that dry. I then put on my wood conditioner and let that dry.

This is the small spot I started sanding. Don’t mind my makeshift stand from some old 80’s end table bases I found in the shed.

Here it is with the Citristrip drying before I scraped it off.

Finally, raw wood after my two coats of Klean Strip.

Next came the stain. I thought I would use my typical “Early American” by Minwax. I was worried about it bringing out, even more, red tones. I decided to cut it with Minwax “Golden Oak”. It did break down some of the redwood in the table but not completely. I wiped it on with a foam brush and let it dry. I then wiped on some shellac so that the liming wax would adhere better. After the shellac dried I took a large metal putty knife and worked the liming wax into the wood going the direction of the wood grain. I then took #0000 steel wool and buffed it out (in the direction of the woodgrain) until I liked the look of the liming wax. I then decided to seal it all in with Citrus Shield Premium Paste Wax in “neutral”. I love how it turned out. I am thinking I might attempt to do the apron and legs of the table too now.

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Now for the finished product all sealed in with my paste wax. I haven’t decorated or decided what I want to put in the middle of the table yet. I could not get a good full shot of the table either. Our house is a big construction site/ moving site right now. We have a lot of projects going on over here and have not even finished unpacking yet. There is brown paper down all over the floors, so this is the best I could do. I will share more pictures as soon as some of our projects are done.

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