Friday, March 9, 2012

Farmhouse Table

My daughter had an idea to redo an old table into a farmhouse one.  And of course once she started hers, I wanted one.  My table isn't square, so it was a little more challenging, but worth it!  They are very expensive to buy, and this was the fraction of the price.  I am sure you can make it out of more expensive wood, but we wanted to be as frugal as possible, and after years of wear and tear on a table, well you know what they become over time.  And  instead of investing in a new one right now, this was the way to go.  Enjoy.

Step 1.  Have a willing husband to do most of the work, haha.
I am glad we took our mess to the basement because hubby spilled a LOT of stain on the carpet downstairs.  Anyway here goes.

First and foremost, measurements.  Make sure what you need before you start.  My be time consuming (well it was for us, we have done this before) but worth it.

This is my old table, with the years of wear, spills and time.

It is very important to get these two ends square, if not everything will be off.

After that was complete to satisfaction we moved on to cutting the lengths.  Ours were 50 " each.  Then hubby was placed underneath the table to place screws from underside, not fun, haha, but he did it.  It would have been easier to place them from the top and put wood filler in the holes.

Now to sand it a little bit.  We went with spruce wood, 1 because of price and 2 because of price.  We just had to pick through and find the good stuff.  And farm tables aren't suspose to be perfect right?

The first coat of stain.  We chose a walnut stain for ours.  You put it on, wait for 5 to 15 minutes (we did 5) and wipe the excess off, we waited until the next day to apply the next coat.  We did 3 coats all together.  And the problem we had with using an old table was with the legs of the table.  They already had a finish on them and they weren't taking the stain as well.  I am sure there are things we could have done but weren't interested in time consuming projects.  But they did come out dark in creases so it went okay I think.  I will get better pics when it is moved upstairs.

First coat of stain.

Our finished project.  We have 3 coats of stain, 4 coats of satin finish on top of that.  I am very pleased with my new/old farmhouse table.  I am sure many more meals will be eaten here.  Our daughters turned out awesome also.