Table Side Project

Warning: this post is rather lengthy and filled with pictures.

Cory & I interrupted our house painting with a side project. We really only have trim and doors to go but in my opinion, those are the worst things to have to paint. We needed a little break and we also needed wanted a new table for our dining room so that’s exactly what we did.

Here’s our table at our old apartment.

And in our house:

Nothing was wrong with our old table. In fact, I actually really liked it. Cory & I got an old sewing machine base from my grandfather right after we got married that we converted into a table. And when I say “we” I mean Cory and his dad. J David actually made a table top for us out of some wood that Cory had left over from a bookcase he had built. He also added some trim around the edge to make it look more finished. Cory attached the table to the base and all I did was paint it light blue. We loved that the table was rather large and have had up to ten people fitting around it before. When we moved it into our new dining room we realized that we would rather have a rectangular table instead of a square one.

I have been in love with farmhouse tables for a while now. I like the old rugged look to them. Here are some pictures I have collected over the years. I’m sorry I do not have sources to site these pics (I saved them before I found Pintrest). These are just a few of the photos that have been saved.

As soon as we decided to get a rectangle table I began searching for a farmhouse table. I checked furniture stores but the two that I found were VERY expensive, I searched on Craig’s list, and antique stores.(Side note, Cory & I just got back from visiting friends in Atlanta and there were farmhouse tables EVERYWHERE---I guess I should’ve checked there) I had no luck until one day I was reading Dream Book Design about how to make a farmhouse table. (if you haven't seen this blog, you should check it out. It rocks!) I showed Cory the tutorial (along with some others I found online) and he said he would make one. I really liked the one from Dream Book because they used a different base for the table as oppose to four table legs. That’s exactly what I wanted. I love pedestal tables because you can fit more people comfortably around them. I also really wanted to use our sewing machine base because I like the look of it. By using the base we also can keep our old table top and use it again if we ever want to.

Cory went to his mom’s house to look for wood from his dad. He found some Cypress planks (Cory’s favorite type of tree) to use. I love how our first table was constructed by Cory’s dad with leftover wood from Cory and this new table is constructed by Cory with left over wood from David. Although, I really wish David could be here to help construct this one. Using this wood does give the table special meaning though. I know David would be SO proud of Cory and his skills that he acquired from watching him. Anyway, before I get into full on crying, Cory got the wood and got to work. I was going to document each step but this is all I got.

Whoops! Anyway, Cory put the table together and it looked great! To get the old “farmhouse” look, though we had to beat it up a bit. If our neighbors saw us they probably thought we had anger management problems because we were hitting our table with blocks of wood, tools of all sorts, nailing screws and nails to make holes, and throwing things at it. It was actually pretty fun. After we banged it up we stained the table and then put a coat of polyurethane on it. We accidentally put a gloss polyurethane on it so it’s a bit more shiny than we had thought but I actually like it better because it protects the surface better.

Here it is.

And a close up.

And from the side. Please note that we’re in search for a large rug. This one is here for floor protection purposes.

Now for the chairs. Cory and I were so kindly offered a few tables and chairs when we moved into our house. One of those tables was from my sister who lives several hours away. We probably would’ve been fine with getting her old table but it would have been a while before we could’ve gotten it. My mom has actually taken her up on the table offer, which she was the one who bought it for her in the first place. Mom just wants the table to put in her sewing room so she said we could have the chairs. All but two of the chairs to her table are here in town. We actually had two of them at our house. There were four black chairs and two red ones. I didn’t really want too “matchy” of chairs and wanted them to look kind of worn like the table. Here’s an inspiration chair from Restoration Hardware and is about $350 a chair, actually it’s on sale for $229.

Here’s the black chair before. I recovered it back in the fall (here)

I’m usually painting furniture around here but this time I stripped the paint, which isn’t a fun process. Here’s what I used to do that. This stuff works really well. I recommend it if you’re stripping paint. You have to make sure to paint it on rather thick, though.

Here’s the chair after paint stripping, sanding, staining, and polyurethaning it. Oh, and covering the seat with a linen type fabric.

As you can see I left a few places with a little paint and imperfections. It was kind of like “distressing” furniture opposite way.

For the red chairs I decided to skip the paint stripping and just paint over. I really liked the red chairs and it was hard to paint over but they just didn’t fit in our home. Here they are before.

I tried to go with a puddy color but they ended up more blue than green. I also glazed them to get an antique look.

And here’s how it looks all together. I know it may look like junk picked up from side of the road but it’s exactly what I was going for. A little eclectic, if you will. We may add a bench for one side of the table because each side can actually hold three chairs. We'll see, and if we do, you know I'll post a picture.

I’m being stingy and not showing the whole room because there’s a little more tweaking before it’s picture worthy.

Wow, that was long. Thanks for stopping by. J

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