Distressed Dining Table

Well, here we go! I suspect this post is going to be long, because this project took me ALL weekend to do! I STILL have to find and spray paint two more chairs but that will be easy. Here is the tale of a craigslist table turned shabby chic. I like to show the finished product first... The table that came with the house {not pictured} when we moved in was nice, but way too fancy for us. The entire edging around the table had intricate carved designs. {Que kids who drip syrup every morning} After living with it for four or five years now, I finally decided it was time for a change. I was going to build a farmhouse table using Ana White's plans but after finding this on craigslist, I decided this would be easier.

SO! I bought this puppy for $80 {it was listed for $100}, and upon unloading it upside down from the truck I saw a "Made in Italy" stamp! Saa-weet! This baby is solid wood, even the entire tabletop is ONE piece of solid wood. It had been routed to look like it was separate boards, but I'll get to that later. First up, I used my sander and 40 grit sandpaper to remove the finish and scratches from the tabletop and edges. My original plan was re stain the top dark, and do the legs and bottom of the table cream and distress it.

Herein lies the problem. These grooves in the wood, {which I could envision syrup getting in} needed to be filled in. I bought stainable wood filler but was still skeptical that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from the wood to the filler. I was right. After I filled the cracks and let it dry completely, I sanded it again, this time with 120 grit disks. Next, I stained the whole top {I justified that I hadn't completely wasted a day of sanding by telling myself I DID have to get those big scratches out anyway}.

Can you see all those tiny dimples all over the wood? Brandon told me that they do that on purpose for decoration. Say what?! Looks like a kid took a nail and hammer to the whole thing. I filled some of them in with filler, and some I just made sure the paint got all the way in so that they weren't as obvious. I knew the distressing at the end would also aid in masking their imperfections. That's the beauty of distressing. ;)

I stopped taking pictures because my hands were busy painting! After the stain dried overnight {after I wiped it off according to directions of course}, I painted 4 coats of "Honeymilk" high gloss Valspar paint from Lowe's. Originally I planned on using flat paint and then applying polycrylic clear coat on top. Then we saw how much the polycrylic costs. We rushed back to the paint counter and switched to high gloss before she tinted our paint. The high gloss will allow for wiping it down without taking the paint off.

You see I'm missing two chairs. I'll be hitting up the thrift stores this week to find me some $5-$10 chairs that I can paint. I decided to do mis-matched chairs and a few different aqua colors.
I have three shades of aqua and I was going to do two of each color. I already had one heirloom white distressed chair so I'm toying with the idea of having the two end chairs match the table and the other four chairs aqua. That will probably be what I do.

After the paint dried, I took fine sandpaper and distressed all the edges of the table. I also did some areas down the legs. This is the reason why I stained the whole top after realizing the wood filler would show...I wanted the dark stain to show through under the sanded places.

This chair I originally painted heirloom white and had a gray and yellow fabric on the seat. I switched that all up and now it's good to go!

This chair I bought at an estate sale a few weeks ago for $5. This one is the lightest aqua.

Here is the heirloom white chair I already had.

This chair is from that same estate sale, and it was $10. This one I actually used my free quart I got in the mail of Glidden paint in "Deepest Aqua" and then distressed it.

Well, this project took me all weekend, but I did it! I'm super happy with how it turned out! Also this table isn't so enormous like my old one, so it gives us more room in the dining room. I'll be sure to post the finished look when I get my last two chairs done! :)