so let me explain...i had been looking for a round dining room table for months when a sweet friend called and said she was remodeling her kitchen and would no longer need her table and did i want it...i jumped on it because it was not only a great, sturdy table but it was also my favorite word...free! i said i would take it and within a day or two her hubby delivered it to my garage. this was in january...and i just finished it this past weekend! in my defense, i wasn't exactly sure of what i wanted to do and so what's a girl to do in that situation...pinterest, of course. well, if you've been on pinterest you know that it's never ending...and addictive...and makes me very indecisive. anyone else have that problem? so after much hemming and hawing, i chose to follow a tutorial for my table from Remodelando la Casa
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after priming the table base, i made the mistake of using an oil based white paint. why was it a mistake you ask...because oil based paint STINKS!! i am not overreacting AT ALL! it literally took over a month of sitting in my garage and on sunny days sitting in my driveway for the stench to go away. i even googled and pinterest-ed ways to get the smell to go away faster, and NONE of them worked. and unfortunately, that is not the only hiccup i had...sigh...
i did use my Wagner Paint Sprayer for the base since there were so many crevices and nooks/crannies and it did make it a lot easier to paint than a brush. it was the first time i had used it and was pretty impressed until i had to clean all the little pieces...i will use it again, but it will be on a larger project.
the table base after being both primed and painted.
once the base was completed i started on the table top. i sanded and sanded until i was down to what i thought was the raw wood. i then attempted to stain the top in Rustoleum's Driftwood stain. i got it to the color that i wanted with two coats of stain and then another hiccup happened...i couldn't find the same type of wax that the tutorial suggested, but found Amy Howard's dark wax, which is similar. i started to apply the wax and noticed that the stain was coming off...not just a bit, but ALL.OF.IT! tears happened and maybe even a slight two year old temper tantrum did too... :( yes, i admit it and no, i am not ashamed...
after visiting the hardware store i bought the wax from and them not being sure what to do, searching the internet on what i may have done wrong, and then finally a local store that refurbishes furniture, the sweet lady there said my table top wasn't real wood, but particle board with a piece of laminate over it...more tears may or may not have happened on my drive home...
a few days later i went back to the hardware store and purchased Amy Howard's One Step paint in french blue...i chose this color because it is more of a pale, grey blue and was close to the original stain i wanted.
so i painted the top, waxed the bottom part of the top and was in love...now to figure out what to do about protecting the top. it is a dining table after all. after much more hemming and hawing on what to do since i didn't want a shiny, but matte finish, i thought i was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this project...wrong, again!
i tried the wax again, but didn't like the way it looked so i tried using a clear matte spray...or at least what i thought was clear....it turned out it was white...yes, someone had apparently switched the lids...more tears people...i feel like i cried more over this project than any other one i have ever done...maybe i am pre-menopausal...or just weepy because this project felt like it was never going to be finished... :)
soooo...i freaked out about the white and before it was even able to completely dry i was sanding that table top like a crazy person. my neighbors think i am a loon, i'm convinced of it...
this has turned into a very long post, but i hope you have gotten a few laughs at my expense...it's ok, i'm used to it...my family laughs at me all.the.time!
without further ado, here she is in all her glory...and guess what? i.love.her! i think i'm gonna call her elsa...because she's an icy blue and white, with gray tones...and i think she's a beaut!
meet elsa...thank you to my wonderful hubby and my favorite son for putting her back together, and making sure she was perfectly aligned with and without the leaf. sorry these pics aren't great, but we haven't had sunshine in several days and this was the best i could do. i will post more pics of her all dressed up in the coming days, but for now...this is elsa!
xo-
heather
