This post contains affiliate links. For more information about my affiliations, please see my Disclosure Statement.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been obsessing over what was wrong with my dining area. And then I realized…it’s my kitchen table. I hated the color.
Before we moved, I painted it in white chalk paint. In our old, dark kitchen it was beautiful. In this one, it was just too bright.
I’ve been having trouble with this table for years, though. It was given to us by some friends who just wanted rid of it. When we got it, it looked like this:
Minus the giant water ring, which was my fault. But I hated the color. So I tried to stain it with Polyshades Antique Walnut. This was before my big post on How to Stain Antique Furniture, though, so I didn’t quite know how Polyshades worked. I was wiping off the excess, which meant it was waaay too light. It came out like this:
And thanks to not having a place to let it dry undisturbed, it had cat hair all over it. See if you can guess why. -_-
Anyway, the stain was way too close to the original color, so after about a year, I broke down and painted it in Americana Chalk Paint in Everlasting. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it in our old kitchen, but here it is in our new one:
As you can see, I never got to the chairs. But the table is WAY too bright in that dining area. Our old apartment had horrible faux oak cabinets and trim, whereas this apartment is done in all white trim and doors. The kitchen cabinets are cherry, but the white table was still just way too much. Zach and I couldn’t stand to turn on the chandelier that’s hanging right above it because it made our eyes hurt.
Parts of it had also started to yellow (even though I coated it in wax) and it had lint and cat hair in it (though you can’t tell in the photo).
I thought I would fix it by spray painting the chairs a darker color…but I’m glad I didn’t, because staining was a much better idea. So I sanded the table top and stained it in Dark Walnut. I then went over it in Polycrylic.
I LOVE this color!
It looks so much better!
As you can see, I still haven’t done the base or the chairs. I need to get a smaller sander before I can start on those. I’m looking at this Genesis.
You may also notice that the rug is missing. Well, last week our kitchen flooded. It’s one of the things I hate about apartments, since it wasn’t a problem with OUR unit. The unit above us was being remodeled and, somehow, the pipes behind their sink got disconnected. So when they were cleaning, the water dripped out of the pipes and came pouring into my kitchen. The rug absorbed a good bit of it before I noticed. Since it was late-ish and our complex has rules about noise after 7 PM, I moved the rug into Zach’s bath tub until I could shampoo it the next morning. By then, it had mildewed (which I managed to get out). After that, I moved the rug into the living room and I have no intention of putting it back into the kitchen…because I’m going to decorate the dining area in navy blue and grey!
I also like these fabrics from Joann’s to reupholster the chair–Richloom Studio Bravo Marina or Stamped Floral Blue & Grey. Though I also like this Paisley Navy Blue. Dinner can get kind of messy, though, so I would have to cover anything with that much white in plastic. 😛
I’m very excited to finally have a direction! I have some thrift store decorations I’ll update about as soon as I’m finished with them.
When refinishing furniture, do you prefer paint or stain? Leave your reasons in the comments!
