With a little elbow grease a new table is within reach.
Sometimes a kitchen table is in need of a refresh out of a dated look. In this case our table had some significant usage wear and needed a more modern look. And just like some of our other posts, just like you, we got task focused and forgot to take good pictures along the way. With such little time in the day juggling home life and work, there's only so much time for fun DIY projects - and sometimes even less time to make sure we got all the pictures we needed. To the right is a picture of the legs and table skirt to show the stain color, this color was used on the entire table top as well, but at this point we had already jumped into the first step - stain stripping.
Refinishing a table is easy and just takes time. We followed the following steps:
Strip the areas to be refinished
Sand areas being refinished
Disassemble Table to make staining/painting easier
Table Top
Apply Stain
Apply Top Coat
Legs and Table Skirt
Paint with Color
Reassemble
After moving the table outside to a well ventilated area it was time to use a stripping product to quickly remove the stain. We used two different types of strippers that we had on the shelf (one clearly worked quicker than the other). First was Jasco Paint Remover. This stuff worked fast, and head the warning about skin contact as this stuff stings if you accidently get it on you. The second product we used was CitriStrip Gel which is safe for indoor use and worked well too.
After apply the stripper to the table top, using a paint stirring stick (here we used Jasco Paint Remover and it will eat through foam so we left that for the legs and the CitriStrip), we covered the table top with plastic wrap to keep the moisture in and prevent the outdoor temperature and sun from drying out the product. After a 10 minutes we were then able to remove the plastic wrap and begin using a putty knife to scrape it off.
The legs and skirt were coated with CitriStrip using a foam brush as we had already run out of what little Jasco Paint Remover we had left. Let the putty knife do the work and after all of the stripper is scraped up, the table was hosed off with water to clean off any stripper residue, and left outside to dry.
Now it was on to sand all of the surfaces. We ran out of stripper so we left the remaining stain remove to abrasives. Using a detail sander, starting with 60 grit, then stepping up to 80, 120, and finally 240 the table was finally ready for finishing.
We chose a sunbleached colored stain that we applied using a rag and any excess stain was wiped clean with a clean rag. After drying we then applied a water based polyacrylic semi-gloss we had left over from a previous project. This time the top coat was applied with a synthetic paint brush and then using a foam brush any overapplied material was leveled out with a foam brush. The water based top coat was selected instead of an oil based one to reduce yellowing that is common, since we were going for a whitened table top look.
After the table top was refinished it was time to paint the table top skirt and legs satin black. This was when it made sense to disassemble to table top from its legs to make painting easier. The table top was flipped upside down and the table top underside was masked off. Inside the table skirt wasn't masked off, instead we used a large piece of cardboard to provide masking as we sprayed. Multiple small coats were applied, allowing the material to build up to prevent over spraying and paint running.
Again, no in progress pictures of the black spray painting due to our task focused mindset, but the above are the after photos.
After reassembling the legs using an open end 7/16" box wrench to secure legs to the table with the washers, lock washers, and nuts, the table was brought inside to our Kitchen.
This was an easy refinishing job which came out great. With Just Enough effort, and practice, we're going to apply the same finish to our farmhouse table which is also badly in need of refinishing later on.
Like what you see in the background? Check out our our Kitchen Cabinet Lighting DIY and Subway Backslash DIY.
Personal Protection
vinyl gloves
Table Preparation
Jasco Premium Stripper
CitriStrip Gel Stripper
Plastic Wrap
Wood Paint Stick
Foam Brush
Detail Sander
Sander 60-240 grit sand paper
Putty Knife
Table Top Refinishing
7/16" Open Endbox Wrench
General Finish Polyacrylic Semi Gloss Water Based Top Coat
Varathane Sunbleached stain
Synthetic Paint Brush
Foam Brush
clean rags
Behr Sating Black Spray Paint