I don’t know about you but I cannot let quality furniture be discarded. We bought this dining room table when we were first married brand new from the furniture store but it no longer fits in with the farmhouse decor. When we refinished the floors we chose a walnut stain and the table is stained similarly so it made our dining room very dark. But this table is in great shape and it was one of our very first purchases as a married couple and it was only the aesthetics that I no longer loved. So because I love light, white and bright I decided to give this dining room table a makeover.
This table is very large, it includes two leaves for extending it which makes it nice when we have family over. Because of its size, I knew it would be a pain to try and move out of the dining room so I decided to refinish the entire thing where it stood. I did prep the area by laying plastic sheeting down.
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Supplies Needed for Dining Room Table Makeover
- Citri-strip furniture stripper
- Chip brush
- Putty Knife
- Palm or orbital sander
- Fine grit sandpaper
- Matte sealer (this is the one I used)
- Wire Brush
- Dropcloth or plastic sheeting
- Paintbrush (Purdy paintbrushes are my favorite)
- One Step Paint
I knew I wanted to paint at least part of the table white but not the top of it as I thought that might be too much white and I wanted some contrast. So I decided to strip the table using Citri-Strip. The nice thing about this is that it does not have any type of chemical smell and since I was doing this in the house this was great.
I used this Citri-strip only on the top since the legs would be painted. I used a chip brush to apply it on thick and then let it sit for about a half-hour. Some people have said you could apply plastic wrap on top to help it work and not dry out but I didn’t feel this was necessary as I knew there was only one layer of stain.
You will want to scrape off a small area first to see if the stain and polyurethane are ready to be scraped off. Once it is you will just take a putty knife to the entire table. There were some areas where all the stain did not scrape off so I just used more of the Citri-strip in that area.
The Citri-strip will go on orange in color and then will turn white after it has had a chance to start working.
I made sure to have a garbage can nearby to place on the scraped off bits into the garbage to keep the mess to a minimum.
The hardest part of this table was the curved edges as the Citri-strip is not easily scraped off so I ended up using a wire brush along the edges.
Once the entire table has been scraped I took a rag and wiped it down several times and let it dry overnight. I chose not to re-stain the wood as I liked the way it looked with the raw wood with the stain that had settled into the grain of the wood. I did end up bringing the palm sander inside and lightly sanding the table with fine-grit sandpaper to remove any rough spots that may have been left behind. I then wiped the table down again and sealed the top with a matte sealer from Amy Howard at Home.
You can see from this picture below that the matte sealer does change the color slightly when it is applied. It gives the wood a richer look than the dull look of the raw wood.
Once the top was finished I moved onto the legs, I applied three coats of my favorite paint: Rescue, Restore Paint in the color Blessed. The legs also received two coats of the same matte sealer that I used on the top.
I am currently in the process of refinishing the chairs for the dining room table to better match the table now and will link to that blog post as soon as it is done!
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