Dining Room Table Makeover

So although we recently made over the dining room off our kitchen we realized that because we will be hosting Thanksgiving at our home this year (15+ people) we would need a larger seating area. Also, we tend to have people over fairly regularly and there is never enough seating! So we decided to take back our formal dining room (which had been a kids playroom) and give it new life!

I’ll be the first to admit I have a vision, but sometimes when I go to create this vision it doesn’t quite match what I had in my head. However, I am married to the most wonderful man, he doesn’t always see what I see, but man oh man can he make it happen. This usually means that I find some pics that are close to what I am thinking and show him LOTS of visuals so that he can see what I see. For our dining room makeover this happened often!

This whole process started off with our “Take the House Back” strategy.  When we first moved in we designated our formal dining room (which was carpeted) as a kids play room.  It is in between our kitchen and living room so we figured it would be perfect to have the kids playing next to us, rather than on top of us.  They all also have their own bedrooms (the entire upstairs is theirs actually – 3 bedrooms and a bath) that they could play in.  Unfortunately they NEVER played in their bedrooms and the toys from their playroom were scattered throughout the whole house.  So we decided to “take the house back”!  We moved all the toys upstairs and then out the carpet came.  My hubby was so fast, that in the time it took me to run to home depot and grab stain for the table he already had the carpet and pad rolled up and moved out!

The day before I had been scrolling through Craigslist and stumbled upon this beauty of a table!  She came with nine chairs and two leaves which meant that we would be able to easily seat ten people!  I drove the hour from my house and drove away with all the goodness for only $50!

Once I got the table home I set it up on some sawhorses in the garage and started sanding!  I used out palm sander and 150 grit sandpaper and within an hour I had sanded off all the glossy finish.  I brushed the table off and wiped it down with a damp rag just to make sure I got all that sawdust off of it before I started staining.

After it was dry, I applied the first coat of stain (Varathane in Kona) with a clean rag.  I just rubbed it on using long strokes.  I didn’t bother wiping it off after because I knew we wanted a dark stain.  After an hour it was dry (and the kids were finally in bed) so my hubby and I went out to distress it.  We beat the table top with a metal rod, rocks, the dull side of an ax, basically whatever was laying around the garage.  After we were done beating the table up, my hubby applied the next layer of stain.  He went super heavy in his application, meaning that we wouldn’t need to do a third coat.  The directions said that it should be dry within 24 hours, however because we put it on so heavy it took a little bit longer.

After the stain was dry we went ahead and put a couple of coats of a polyurethane on top (Varathane in Satin).  With three small kids using the table multiple times a day we wanted something that would hold up for a few years without needing any touch ups.  The directions for the poly recommended 48 hours before moderate use, and a full week for heavy duty use.  I knew we were going to have to wait the full week, but it was so hard to know all the work was done and we couldn’t enjoy it right away!  We moved it in over the weekend and immediately the room felt so much more like us!  The table is the perfect size for the room and the stain turned out amazing, it’s a dark espresso color and with the poly layer on top it cleans up so easily.

Stay tuned for some more exciting changes and furniture pieces coming to this room!