Refinished Dining Table

When Jaron and I got married, his Mom and Aunt found us a cute little dining table and chairs at a garage sale for next to nothing. My hope for the past three years was to refinish it but we first lived in an apartment complex...no room for big projects. Then we moved into a duplex which was much bigger but had no garage or over hang to protect from all the southern rain and humidity. But now that we've bought a house (YAY) with a nice big garage (YAY) I've finally been able to do my table! 

I don't have a "before" picture of it all assembled due to it coming straight from storage..but to give you an idea of the color, here's a picture of the top.

The grain is gorgeous! I just couldn't cover it up with paint. So I sanded the top in hopes to stain it. I used my mouse sander with 80 grain sand paper and went to town (always sand with the grain of the wood). It took a while since I didn't strip the wood before but it was well worth it!

After sanding, I wiped it down with a damp cloth to make sure all the dust was off before I started to stain. I used Minwax dark walnut stain. I applied the stain first with a brush and then spread it out (with the grain of the wood) with cheese cloth (then you don't have any brush hairs). I gave it about 5 minutes to soak in and then wiped away any excess. Be sure to wipe away excess so you don't end up with a sticky table top! I applied two coats of stain and let it dry while I got to painting the chairs and legs of my table. 

For paint, I used Glidden 2 in 1 paint and primer in the antique white color with the eggshell/satin finish. It took 3 coats to cover my chairs and legs of the table. I noticed that this paint grabs any and all types of dirt it can..fingerprints and all! I figured white would be harder to keep clean but this literally attracted and hung on to dirt. So I cleaned it well, and applied a thin layer of the polycrylic on top of the paint to keep it from grabbing dirt and making it much easier to clean.

 As that dried, I went back to staining! When the stain was all dry, I applied 3 good solid layers of Minwax Polycrylic in Satin. Be sure to apply with the grain of the wood. Let each layer dry for at least two hours between applications. I also sanded briefly with a 220 grain between each layer and brushed off the dust with a clean rag.

Once everything was dry, my husband assembled it all together and we've been happily using it ever since! I absolutely love it! And I'm confident that it will be able to stand up to some good wear and tear!

UPDATE: as seen in the picture above, I just did two chairs out of our set of four. I wanted to try something a little less time consuming for them instead of applying 3 coats of paint and a clear coat. So I went out on a limb and bought some spray paint primer...just white primer. I bought a can of primer per chair. I then sprayed it down, focusing on the difficult to paint parts (legs, dowels, etc.). Each can coated the chair very nicely! I then added my first coat of paint and guess what! I only had to do some minor touch ups after the first coat. I let that dry and applied the polycrylic and was done! I got two chairs done in 3 hours whereas the first two chairs took me days to finish! They look the exact same! So do yourself a favor and do it the easy way...if you're low on funds and don't want to pay the $3 a can for spray paint then the extra time may be your option. However, for me, it was worth the extra money!