I believe I was thirteen the first time I refinished a piece of furniture. I stripped and stained my great grandmother vanity and replaced the knobs and pulls to something more my style. It was then that I fell in love with taking something old and maybe a little beat up and bringing it back to life. My latest project was to refinish a kitchen table that I bought to replace an old Urban Living (aka IKEA) table.
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| Oops...I started sanding before taking a "Before" picture |
After buying our new house and having a bay window breakfast nook I decided the table I needed to replace the existing one with needed to be round. I was on the hunt for a round pedestal table and after finding this one on Craigslist for $40 complete with chairs (which I sold for $20) I was sold!
Painting a piece a furniture that is high traffic is much like painting kitchen cabinetry; you will need a stain blocking oil based primer, a durable paint, and a final coat of protectant.
Everybody's favorite refinishing task comes first...sanding! Make sure to use a medium grit sand paper.
After the table is sanded and smooth to the touch wipe done all the dust and debris to begin priming. Zinsser offers a great stain blocking oil based primer to get the job done. I also used the Zinsser BIN shellac based primer to get into the crevices which were unreachable with the sander and the foam roller.
The table should have two coats of primer on it with allowing each coat of primer sufficient drying time. Most direct 24 hours of drying time.
Now into Day 3 of this project we can finally move onto painting! For this table I wanted to make sure that I had a durable paint to withstand the traffic of a kitchen table, I went with Benjamin Moore Advance water based enamel alkyd, it will give a hard finish much like oil based paints. I also used my trusty Corona "Excalibur, I call on your power" paint brush.
Once again two coats for paint is recommended with again 24 hours of drying time in between! And you thought this was a weekend project! :)
After the final coat of paint is adhered, a curing time of 3-5 days is recommended before protecting the table. It has become a personal preference of mine when painting furniture white or a lighter color to use a wax rather than Polyurethane, for in time the wax will not yellow or age your paint color.
The wax I used for this table for SC Johnson Paste Wax, clear in color. I applied three coats of wax to this table, giving a couple hours of drying time in between each coat.
After two weeks of refinishing this table it finally made its way into the breakfast nook and I am in love! Now all I need are chairs for my new table.
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