Good Intentions- Part 1 of 3-Dining Table Redo

So after visiting my home (and seeing all of my furniture redo's), two separate friends thought redoing furniture would make a great business. The idea (pitched by both friends) was they would buy the pieces, I would redo them and then they would sell them...and we all split the profit. I have to admit I was totally on-board at first, as I had recently been laid off from my job and have been desperately seeking a new/different way to bring in an extra income (so over doing the same thing, need a change). Then it hit me..."Wait, what??"

No, no, no...the whole reason I do this is because I want to make ho-hum craigslist/yard sale finds into something awesome for my house. The more I thought about it the more I realized that if I did this to make money I would drive myself insane (perfectionist that I can be- with other people's things), and I would quickly hate it.

Unfortunately one of my friends had already made 3 purchases...so I was bound. So I had to get to work on these pieces and get them out of my garage  uh, yeah workspace...I've got my own trash to make treasure :)

So here is my first piece (already promised to another friend- the same one that was the lucky friend in my Friendly Favor- $5 Dresser redo).

Shoot, I thought I had a pic of the table  (before) but can't find it.

After my friend gave me her color preference I got the table sanded asap (I also managed to do the benched -not pictured and the seats to the chairs above)

The plan is to stain the table top, bench top and chair seats. The rest will be painted barn red.

2 of the bench legs

Table legs

Bench top- stained (disregard the upside down table at the top of the pic- that will be featured in an upcoming post)

Table top close up- stained.

Table top- first coat of poly

Table top

At this point I have spent a total of 4 hours (sanding, painting, staining, and 1st coat of poly). Still need 1 more coat of paint on the table legs, and at least one more coat of poly on the table top and bench top, and to sand the spindles/legs, etc of the chairs- then stain and paint those).


Ok, so we had to pause a moment and rethink this- I finished the table and bench legs and once I attached them I didn't like the color combo. The dislike of the combo was confirmed with hubby and a few friends. I had recently painted my DIY candle holders (see here Candlesticks) and used a pretty bluish gray (Valspar primer and then Valspar Paint + Primer Spray Paint- spray paint made painting these chairs soooo much easier) for the final paint color. I thought I would give this color a try since I have so much paint left. Also, I started to stain the seats to the chairs but the stain color was coming out darker so that wasn't going to work either. So here is the finished product-

LOVE the bench, that's my favorite part. Everyone seems to perk up when they find out a bench is involved- I didn't realize they were so popular :)

Close up of the table top