It was about a month before last Christmas, we had moved back into our newly remodeled home and I was sitting at our informal dining table when I realized that it just didn't fit in with the new house. I loved the old thing (it was one of the first purchases that my husband made when he moved here after grad school) and it had great shape, but it was finished in a light stain that just screamed country, and the new house was definitely more beachy modern. One big problem was the chairs. While they were fully functional, they were just ordinary looking and boring and not the look I wanted in our new home. So, I sold them in a garage sale to a young man who was just getting his first apartment.
Original table and chairs
Around this time I saw these pictures in a Pottery Barn catalog and knew that was the look I wanted and I needed those chairs. They were a bit of a splurge, but hubby made them my Christmas present. Hooray for me. We even got one of the six I wanted for free with a bonus bucks deal (which resulted in me getting the last chair a few days after Christmas -- as soon as the bonus bucks could be used).
Pottery Barn chairs with two toned table (Image from PotteryBarn.com)
Pottery Barn chairs paired with a table similar in style to our table (Image from PotteryBarn.com)
However, the table needed some work. Out to the garage it went. We started by using stripper, to get the poly off the top of the table. It took three applications (and next time I want to try citristrip since I've heard it works really well) and a bit of scraping to get it all off. Next my husband sanded it down to get all the old stain out. I would say he did a three part sanding, going up in grit from a 100 to a 250 (I think). We didn't bother stripping the legs and apron of the table since I knew that I was going to paint this part white. We did clean it all really well and then sanded so the primer would have something to hold on to. I then restained the top of the table a deeper brown (Minwax English Chestnut or was it Special Walnut? -- of course I didn't write it down. I just stained some test pieces and decided which color I thought matched the chair legs the best). Two coats of stain and the table top was ready for three coats of polyurethane. Between each coat we sanded smooth. Finally, I taped off the table top from the apron and legs and primed and painted. One coat of primer and two coats of Behr Swiss Coffee in semi-gloss later and I had the perfect (the top looks great with the chair legs), newly refinished informal, everyday dining table for our great room.
Our refinished table with new chairs
(Of course the whole refinishing project ended up being more expensive than anticipated because without the table under the light, super tall hubby banged his head on the light and broke the glass. So we had to order a new glass piece (luckily it wasn't too expensive and way less than a whole new table).
