Tada! Table.

Have you ever had one of those projects that seems like a good idea, and is a good idea, but if you had known how much work it was going to be . . . Well, in this case I would have done it anyway, but you know the feeling. 

We have an old table. I'm not sure how old it is. We got it from Tanya, a fellow Navy wife with four kids. She got it from a little old woman who said, "A big family needs a big table." But when Tanya's big family was moved to Virginia, the Navy refused to move the table. It was too heavy. Tanya could't afford to ship it herself, so she offered it around to her acquaintance.

At the time, I was full of dreams of a big family to come, so I jumped on the chance. Seth sure was surprised to come home and find a huge wooden table and six chairs where a little white formica circle had been. But the table had been through a lot. It's finish was worn. Its underside was covered in food particles.  It needed work.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I love a project. They also know that unless I have a pressing deadline, that project ins't going to get done. We've had this table for six years, and only now, two dwellings later, is it getting the attention that it's been needing since the beginning.

My excuse is that the table is big and solid. It's a real pain to move. When I first got it, we needed four navy wives to carry it to my house. We couldn't get it in through the screen door, so we had to lift it up onto the front porch and maneuver it through my front door, down the hall, back through the kitchen, and into my diningroom. That is definitely an experience to repeat as little as possible. Plus now we have a garage, which makes handy-work less dependent on the weather. It's hard to refinish a table in the rain.

So when we unloaded our moving truck last October, we just left the table in the garage. It sat there for a while until we found a store that sold refinishing equipment (Fred Meyer has a wonderful selection). We used Formby's Finish Remover, which I was told is much easier than sanding. It is easier, but it’s not faster, and I'd call it a toss up between the smell of Formby's and the feel of sawdust.

 Still, it was a thrill to watch the uneven old finish scrubbed away and revealed bare wood grain. I wish I had a picture of myself all kitted out in my grubbies with safety goggles, ventilator mask (wow that stuff stinks), and heavy duty rubber gloves on. Boogaloo wasn’t sure what to make of me the first time.

The wood underneath was very pretty. And the new stain gave it a reddish color that I wasn’t anticipating.

The really fun part, though, was spreading on the polycrylic. You might have seen those Minwax commercials where the stain and poly just glides off the disembodied brush in a perfect line and a perfect coat. Nuh-uh. Poly drips, and so does stain for that matter. The polycrylic runs out halfway across the table, and the overlapping gets thicker than the non-overlapping points. And the drip marks stay there forever. There is no smooth and even coat. There is coating, sanding, coating, sanding, coating, and calling it good enough!

 Still, it's fun because the table becomes shiny and smooth and looks like furniture again.  A part of me wanted to keep going until I had the perfect coat, but the objective part of me said, "All you're doing is taking the stain off. It's time to be done with this."  We moved it upstairs, screwed it back together, and called if finished.  Still, good enough was good enough to get the ultimate compliment: the words “I’m impressed” from my husband.