You've been warned.
This post will be long and rambling and will in no way contribute to making the world a better place or make you any smarter. If you have a few minutes of your life you don't mind wasting, stick around. If not, I certainly understand.
Where to begin... Remember last year, not even last year actually, it was several months ago. I found a table and chairs on Craigslist for fifty bucks. Remember how I droned on about it for several posts? Here, here, here and here. How I sanded and stained and painted and stripped and on and on, bladi bla bla bla.....Remember? Yea, well I bought another table a couple of weeks ago and guess what? I fell into the rabbit hole again. The amateur who thinks she knows a little something but really knows very little about furniture restoration rabbit hole.
I happened upon a table for $48.00 at my favorite thrift store. I wasn't in the market for a table, per say. I was just never completely satisfied with the last table. I was going for farm house and ended up with beach cottage. If I had a beach cottage, I'd put this table in it.
Anyway, this is already way, way too wordy. How about some pictures?
So I bought this table. I loved the legs and the top had promise. The previous owners had started working on her. The top was partially stripped and had been sanded with an orbital sander. She had swirly marks all over her. To get rid of the swirls, I had to sand. And sand. Then I had to sand some more.
Once I had her smooth as a baby's behind, I applied a stain made by soaking steel wool in vinegar. It's more of a science experiment than a stain actually.
I was singing and dancing and loving it. All was good.
I was writing blog posts in my head about how fabulously beautiful my new old table was.
I wiped on some Howard's feed n wax and danced a little more. I was pretty sure I heard angels singing. I was in love.
But I'm a fickle girl. What can I say. What feels like love one day, the next... not so much. It was just a crush. In the light of day, I saw splotchiness that as much as I tried to call patina, I just couldn't get past. It looked like a half a**ed job and after spending so many hours sanding, I couldn't settle for what looked hastily done.
I think the problem was wood filler. See those lighter areas in the photo above? Well they were all over the table. What the heck? My next door neighbor/cousin came over to ridicule jokingly ask hadn't I distressed that table enough. His somewhat expert opinion was that a wood filler had been used in the manufacturing process to smooth the grain of the table. A made in China sticker on the underside led me to believe that perhaps my lovely table was not a hand made antique. The vinegar stain works by reacting with the tannins in the wood, it didn't affect the wood filler, and left me with a splotchy mess. I wanted age and patina, but this wasn't what I had in mind.
At that point I fell to the ground and cried Why? Why can't I love you table? I've invested so much time in our relationship. I've sanded my fingers down to nubs. I want so much to love you, I do. It's not you, it's me.
So, I sanded her down. Again.
Opps, there I go getting all wordy.
I sanded, stained, applied 2 coats of satin finish poly and a coat of minwax furniture paste wax.
And I decided to proceded with caution. I thought I could love her, but know my track record too well.
The top looked good. Really good. But then I had to do something about those legs. Those beautiful legs.
Oh my goodness, I'm over six hundred words into this post and I still have to talk about the legs.
It's late, I don't have it in me. I'm not being cruel and dragging it out just to get you to come back. Really it is late. I'll leave you with a photo of the table in the house, but just know, there are more chapters to be written before I can call this a love story.
