HOW TO: Refinishing a dining room table

For Mother's day, I decided I would refinish my mom's boring dining room table! She bought this because it was functional when they moved to Virginia. There stuff was lost by the moving company for over a month.. so she just want stuff they could use, and of course... it never left.

Here is a picture of the chairs... to give you an idea. Nothing special, or notable about the set.

If you have ever considered doing a table, I highly suggest you purchase an electric sander. After watching me try to sand for two hours with no success, my Husband decided this would be a good mothers day gift for me. Thanks babe! 

Luckily, I only needed to sand the top! 

I used Minwax Jacobean stain on the top. 

Always been a favorite of mine. 

I started painting the piece using a Home Depot "Pro" grade brush. And I finally learned something... the brush you use really does matter. And I can't stress enough how much I love my "vintage effects" brush from Woodster. I had to clean my brush and use it wet just to take a picture to prove my point. 

First coat with Home Depot "Pro" brush 

EWW! I would be painting forever. 

Here is my first coat with the Woodster Vintage Effects brush.. which by the way is CHEAPER. 

Thats more like it. Oh! and in case you were wondering, I chose the color "Irish Dew" 

So... after painting... I used a satin poly on the top, and waxed the rest. Waxing chairs sucks. I had hand cramps for a week ): 

But the result was well worth it! 

HOW TO: Using milk paint with a bonding agent

This is one of the only pieces of furniture I bought BEFORE we moved in! And I had been itching to paint it ever since I saw it! I love that the wood didn't need any work! so it would be a perfect piece to try Miss Mustard Seed's Milk paint and try to get the chippy effect.

I decided I wanted a two tone feel, and I picked Grain Sack.

I painted all the pieces I knew I wanted in the grain sack. I will say that I was a little disappointed how "white" it looked... because the grain sack always appears to have more of the grey tint to it.

I added the bonding agent to this piece... because I wanted to have a little control over the chipping of the paint.

I originally wanted to stain the inside of the hutch to match the stain on the "trim"... but after sanding and sanding... the stain wouldn't stick. And I was out of milk paint. SO I used some of the leftover woodsmoke grey chalk paint I used on the buffet to paint the shelves.

To avoid getting any paint on the back of the hutch, I removed it by hammer the inside of the hutch until it was loose and pulling the nails out from behind.

I figure the wood backing is far enough away from the stained trim that it would still fit... but if not then I can always remove it again and add some fun paper or chalk paint it..

You can see the shelves vary slightly in color... and if you look closely, the original backing is lighter then the trim.

I liked that even with the bonding agent, I could "pick" at the paint in places I wanted chipping.

As you can see I really didn't want the chipping to go overboard... but I still wanted the piece to look aged. I am happy with the overall turnout!

My buffet makeover

Okay, so moving to Virginia we sold most of our furniture. We knew we would be with my parents for a few months, and nothing we had was really worth the cost of trekking it across the country and storing it! So when we finally found the perfect place for us, I started hunting craigslist and local Facebook groups for some fun pieces to add character and functionality.

That's when I found this buffet! I immediately fell in love! At least 100 years old, and only $100!

The piece definitely needed some TLC, but it was perfect! and to top it off, it would be my first project using DIY chalk paint.

First I repaired the veneer in the drawers using wood filler.

Once the wool filler dried, I sanded the surface so it wouldn't be visible when painted.

Then I mixed the chalk paint and began painting, finishing all but the drawers before calling it a night.

I love that I can paint indoors so I can do touch ups in-between cleaning and getting other things done around the house.

The next day I finished the drawers and sanded down the top to stain. The top was in very poor shape so I had to sand A LOT.

The drawers would not slide on the tracks with ease, and the top drawer would push to far in on the right. So I removed the tracks and added this metal tab to keep the drawer even.

After staining the top, she is as good as new (personally I think BETTER then new) 

Wouldn't you agree??