Kitchen Table Remodel-DIY

Glaze Coat Table

I have been pinning kitchen table make-over pictures for over a year.  I really don't like my dated table so I always keep a table cloth on it.  All the different DIY projects seemed to be way too much work and cost too much money.  For Christmas this year we got a little money from grandparents so I decided to use the money on some DIY projects.  My table was top on my list.  The first thing I did was pick out the paint for the bottom half of the table and the chairs.  I picked the color based on what was on sale in the blooper paint section of Home Depot.  I found a can of great paint that retails for $35.00 a can on sale for $5.00.  It was an off white color.  I highly recommend a good paint that does not require priming or two coats because chairs and the table have so many grooves.

The next thing I did was purchased some sponge brushes, one good brush and a roller.  I solicited my husband and two sons.  We put cardboard all over the dining room floor and everyone started painting.  I went around with the roller and caught drips and took the grooves out of the paint while the others all painted with the sponge brushes.  We were able to paint the entire table, and 8 chairs in less than two hours.

I did not sand or strip the chairs or the bottom of the table, just painted right over the top.

My table is not 100 percent wood.  It has a pressed board on the top.  For this reason I could not sand it down to pretty wood.  It also had bubbles in the pressed wood and a few paint globs from other projects.  This was easy to fix.

Over the years I have not been very nice to the table, because I always knew I was going to refinish it.

My table has two leaves as well.  I put them all on and started sanding.  This was't a major sanding job, just enough to take out the worst of the grooves.  I couldn't sand down all the bubbles because it would have taken the pressed wood off the top, so I just gave it a quick once over.

As you can see from this picture that adding the stain didn't take away the problem with the bubbles.
Do not worry.  This will be taken care of in the last step.
Staining the table is very easy.  Just rub stain on with a cloth.
It takes a while to dry between coats.  Usually about 6 hours.  This is the part that is hard for me because I am not very patient but since the stain is not actually going into the wood, it needs time to dry along with re-application to get the dark wood look I was going for.  For those of you with real wood tabletops this step will be faster because the stain with seep into your luscious wood.

The first time around I put a shellac coating on my tabletop.  This looked good initially but I found that it didn't hold up, so I sanded it off and changed it to a glaze coat instead.

I let the shellac dry for an entire week and it never hardened up.  I also could still see the bubbles in the table.  This is the point I realized I was going to have to come up with a different finish. 

This one can of stain goes a long way.  I used it on this table, a desk, a large dresser, two end tables, an auto-man, and a sectional, stair rail, and all the wood trim in my living room.  

http://youtu.be/PPyZ5ffPEfk

Using a glaze coat has its pro's and cons.  The best part about it is it drys in 24 hours.  The worst part is it takes quite a bit of patience when it is being done.  The biggest key to success when using a glaze coat is to hold back at least a quarter of the product to drip off a stick into the holes or div-vets.  These will eventually level themselves out to a glass like look.