Table Redo (Part 1)

I stained a table. Can I get a 'what what'?! I stained a flippin' table! And I am shamelessly proud of myself. 

You'd think I built the thing from the ground up based on how ecstatic I am about it, but I've never stained a table before, hence my giddiness. 

Let me start by saying, I'm no stranger to repurposing old things with the intent of making them 'new' again. Partly because it's tough to find well-built furniture nowadays. As a kid, I remember my parents always having heavy, solid furniture that lasted decades. Now, you walk into a furniture store and half of the pieces are laminate and particle board. So I love going to a second-hand store or browsing Craigslist and finding a solid wood piece of furniture. Not only do I get a quality piece of furniture but I also get to do something good for the planet. I'm all about reducing waste. So if I can buy an awesome dresser used rather than consuming a new one, I'm game.

When we moved a few months ago, I donated some of our old dining room furniture to GoodWill. I intended to buy a new table and chairs that I had been eyeing at Home Place Furniture but it was too large to fit in our new space so we opted to go tableless while we figured out a solution. 

We finally decided to wait until we PCS to buy the table I had my eye on with the hopes that our future home would have a bigger dining room. But we still needed something in the meantime. With three kids and holiday meals coming up a dining table is a MUST! 

I didn't want to 'settle' on a table that I didn't like simply to use it for a few months and then trash it once we move (that would totally go against my recycling mentality). So I wanted to find something that we could still use after we move when I came across this beauty:

Okay, so 'beauty' doesn't quite describe it but dammit I saw potential, plus it's solid wood. Score! 

Oh, by the way, forgive all the horribly shot photos in this post - the lighting was terrible and I was too impatient to wait for the sun to move.

If you've been in my home you know that I like dark wood and I like white. But this table was originally a birch-ish color (I think I just made up that term). I'm not one for the light wood look, although I'll admit I did go through a phase about 5 or 6 years ago where I loved the look, therefore Ethan's room and my living room were full of birchy (is that still not a word?) furniture. Fast forward six years and my style has evolved dramatically, as have my living room and E's room. 

So the first thing I wanted to do was stain the table top a dark color. I was diggin' the white legs but they were beat-up (don't believe me? Check out the picture below) so I decided to redo them. Can you guess what color I chose? …Yep, you guessed it: white! I thought the contrast of the white and dark would be appealing and fun. 

So I sanded and painted and sanded and painted and sanded some more. You'll have to take my word for it when I say that it's looking pretty fantabulous (unlike the 'before' pictures above) but it's not quite done. I'll be back tomorrow with a play by play and pictures of my end result! Let me get one more 'what, what' on three. One, two, three...

Xo,

Lor