Kid’s Table Makeover

About a year and a half ago, I was browsing a neighborhood garage sale near a friend’s home and I found a really adorable matching kid’s table and chairs. It was priced at $20.00 for the set. We had already owned a table and chair set for the kiddos, so 20 bucks was a bit out of my price range, even though I liked this one much better.

Later that evening, I headed back to that same friend’s house for a girls’ night and noticed that cute wooden set, curbside, as if it was just waiting for the garbage man to collect it. My natural instincts to rescue it kicked in and before I knew it, it was mine. *Insert evil laugh here.*

After sitting around here for quit some time, I decided to give the table and chairs the makeover they had been screaming for.

First, I used our hand sander and 80 grit sandpaper to remove the old finish from the wood. This process was a huge pain in the butt. It seemed like years had passed before I had finished removing it all, but in reality, it was only 4 days.

There were a few hard to reach places I used the sanding attachment on our dermal tool to buff.

Once all of the old stain had been cleared away, I treated the wood with 120 grit sandpaper.

Next, I wiped down all surfaces to eliminate the dust.

Then, It was time to stain the wood. The stain my husband and I agreed on was Rustoleum  Weathered Gray. When, I applied it to a small section, I was surprisingly disappointed with the look. It was too gray! (That is something I never thought I would say, since each room of my house contains some form of gray.) It looked more like I had painted it rather than stained it. My solution to this problem was to mix this weathered gray with Minwax Special Walnut stain. The Minwax is the exact stain I had used on my dining room table. Hooray for no additional cost!

The combination of these two stains worked perfectly!  It was exactly the look I going for, a warm distressed gray-ish color.

Finally, I applied 4 coats of Minwax Polycrylic to give the table and chairs a little shine and a lot of durability. It is a kid’s table after all.

I am so happy with the final product! Even with all the work of sanding, this has been one of my favorite projects to date.