12 Sep Refinished Farm Table

When we first moved into this house, we lacked furniture since our previous home was smaller. One of our kind neighbors was updating her home and gave us several pieces including this dining table.

The table is a great, solid piece that was well loved over the years so it needed a little TLC. Here’s a closeup of the before finish.

I started by stripping the old finish with our power sander. I used a 60 grit sand paper with the orbital sander and it worked great!

*Side note: If you’re in the market for a sander, I highly recommend this one. It was amazing how easy it took off the old stain.

Look at that beautiful wood grain hiding under the old finish!

**Safety note: Definitely recommend wearing safety glasses and a mask. I did most of the sanding in our garage which I don’t recommend as it makes a huge mess but the best time for me to get anything done is when the kiddos are in bed so I had limited options.

After everything was stripped, I wiped the table down and put on the first coat of stain which was Minwax Special Walnut.

I really liked this stain but decided that I wanted more of a weathered grey look so I went over it slightly with Rust-Oleum Sunbleached. I tried a few different stains including MinWax Weathered Oak which I also liked but it was too translucent for the look I was going for. Rust-Oleum’s Sunbleached seemed to do the trick but only when applied ever so slightly as it has a chalkier finish. Next, I did one more coat of Special Walnut to warm it up a bit. Lastly, I covered the table with a few coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane.

You might’ve noticed that these aren’t the original chairs that went with the table. I ended up giving those to my sister. We bought these x-back chairs last year and were using them in our kitchen but I liked the way they looked with this table so much that I decided to move them in our dining room.

I am very happy with how it came out and can’t wait to decorate it more for Fall 🙂