Refinishing Our Kitchen Table

 Here is the beginning of the kitchen table refinishing project! We were all excited and ready to rock and roll! Here is Jordan being the big helper!

Here is Jordan and me beginning the sanding work. You can see from the left image that I am picking at something on the sand paper. It turns out there was a polyurethane coating on the table which made it extremely difficult to sand because the coating kept gumming up the sandpaper. It was definitely a learning curve.

Here is the first pass sanding on the table top. There is a distinct color difference between the top and the legs. It turns out there was some beautiful wood beneath the rough old table finish. A lesson learned from sanding the top is that it is easier to use a polyurethane and stain stripper than to just muscle through it and pick the crud out of the sand paper. This revelation made things go much more smoothly. However, as you can see in the picture, the table legs have lots of fine features. It turns out that this makes stripping and sanding extremely difficult! The table legs were by far the most difficult part of the project.

Here we go with the pre-stain treatment. We did this in the garage because it was the largest covered area we could find. The table and legs are starting to look really good!

On an unrelated note, most of this pre-stain, stain, and sealant work was done in the late hours of the night after the kids went to bed. Due to the fumes from the chemicals we had to keep the garage door open. If you have ever been to the desert at night you know the bugs just come alive! I guess they hate the heat too. Anyway, there were a ton of bugs that came in and drove us nuts. It turns out that having all the bugs in the garage attracted other critters as well. Hill and I were working on the stain for the table legs and Hill saw something out of the corner of her eye. It turns out a huge tarantula was strolling into the garage to check out the large number of bugs! It was super hairy and with its legs spread out was larger than a saucer plate. Super creepy. Hill immediately began to gasp and move expeditiously to the opposite side of the garage. I, being the tough man that I am, protected my sweet wife by using a piece of cardboard and shooing the spider out of the garage and on its merry way. I did not squish it for two reasons, first, I did not want to have to clean it off the bottom of my shoe, and second, it eats scorpions and other insects we like even less! Ah, the adventures we are having here in Oro Valley.

Here I am putting the stain on the table top. Notice that there is daylight coming in from the garage. We shifted our schedule to work in the mornings after the spider incident. It also kept those pesky bugs from landing in the sealant and making them a permanent part of the table. Hill liked the arrangement better.

Here is a before and after picture of the table top. Quite a difference!

The finished product with some new chairs around it. We are happy to have this project completed and to have a nice place to have our family meals!