Summer projects: Living room tables

So apparently once you start teaching full time it leaves no time for anything else. Including blogging. Next year I start my third year of teaching, and hopefully I'll have gotten the hang of it enough to blog maybe once or twice next year! 😜 just kidding. Kinda.

Well, now that it's summer, I've had some time to do some projects. I have to say that my list of what I want to accomplish this summer is pretty long. First up are my living room tables. My parents gave us their old set of tables once they redid their living room. And I HATED the finish. Yellow/orange finish is not my favorite. Thankfully refinishing is an easy fix...or so I thought. 

The "before"

These tables were seriously a pain. Do you see those rounded legs? Not so fun to get the old finish off. I decided that stripping would be the way to go. I did some research and thought, "this will be a piece of cake!" Yeah, not so much. That shit got everywhere. At least I am extremely happy with the end result! Aren't they cute? AND they go with my new living room rug! Adorbs.

The "after"

The "details" of the project:

First I used Citistrip stripping gel. I applied the gel and let it sit for an hour (this stuff stays sticky for up to 24 hours). Then using a plastic thingy I scraped the gel into a bowl and made a huge mess. Not kidding. The gel was extremely difficult to scrape off the rounded edges and I got really frustrated and used many expletives during the whole process. Once I was done scraping most of the gel of off the wood I used mineral spirits to clean/wipe off the rest. Seriously, did I miss a step? I have no idea. It was a pain in the ass for this size of a project. #endrant 

Once all of the gel was removed I broke out the orbital sander and sanded with 60 and 120 grit sandpaper for the top of the tables. I then used a sandpaper sponge thingy (actual name) and sanded the bottom part of the table by hand. I didn't do that great of a job because I knew I was going to be painting the bottom part white and I got lazy. Plus it was hot outside...

I painted 2 coats of off white paint on the bottom then used more 60 grit sandpaper to give it a distressed look. I used Varathane wood stain in Dark Walnut on the top of the table, and then applied 3 coats of Poly to achieve my final look! 

Hope you like! ❤️