Table Makeover

So most of you recall when my sweet, sweet angel baby managed to climb on top of my bar height table and with his baby Hulk muscles open a bottle of finger nail polish (that I couldn’t even open) and pour it all over the table, place settings, and himself in a matter of 60 seconds. If you haven’t tried this at home, DON’T! The result…..

Yes, apparently finger nail polish will completely eat through lacquer and stain and leave a sticky, and in my case, pink mess! I will admit I sobbed uncontrollably for a solid 10 minutes while I tried to remove the nail polish from both my son and our table until I was able to get a grip of myself and the situation and realize that this was the perfect opportunity to take boring blah table and turn it into some kind of shabby chic awesomeness! So here it goes…..for all of you who have asked about it…..

Step one. I began by sanding down the table. I sanded lightly over the entire table with a hand held sander to rough it up just a bit for the paint to stick.

(This is it sanded.)

Step two. I had some extra white paint just lying around the house, so I decided to white wash it. I made up a mixture of half paint and half water. To white wash, I dipped my paint brush in the paint/water mixture, and then with a clean rag wiped most of the mixture off. I then applied it to the table in small back and forth strokes going with the wood grain. After painting the entire table, I let it dry, and then repeated with about 5 more coats of white wash. You can apply as many coats of white wash as you want until you get your desired appearance.

(After it's 5th coat of white wash)

Step three. After the paint had dried, I took my hand sander and lightly sanded the table top and the legs paying special attention to the corners and edges to give it that shabby chic distressed look.

Step four. I then wiped down the table with a dry cloth to remove all the dust from sanding and then sealed it with a clear gloss wood finish. I got this at Lowes.

One day I plan on getting around to painting the chairs. Maybe I’ll give Mad-Man another bottle of finger nail polish to pour on them so I’ll start on that project sooner than later. Haha. No. But really, I am thinking a nice light blue or even pink or even mismatched blue and pink! What do you think?