My brother is a contractor in Sacramento and he does what I do, only on a much larger scale; he fixes up run-down houses to resell. He found this table in one of the houses he was rehabbing and offered it to me free of charge. This table is the heaviest, most solid table I have ever had to lift. I would be very strong, if I had to move a table like this everyday!
The table was in pretty bad shape when I got it. I forgot a complete before picture of the table, but here is the top after I sanded the old, polyurethane coated finish. There were a couple of issues with the top, one being that there was a deep stain on one side. I had originally planned to use a wood stain on the table top, but I was concerned that the dark spot would show through.
The chunky legs had very chippy, dark blue paint on them. I wanted this rustic blue paint to be exposed in the final finish of the table base.
I painted one coat of Old White Chalk Paint over the apron and legs and then distressed them heavily, so the old, blue paint underneath was exposed.
Since my idea for a natural wood top was not going to work out, I opted to whitewash the top, so that I could still see some of the wood grain on the top. I used Old White mixed with water, painted it on, and wiped it off with a rag. After the whitewash dried I used a scouring pad and water to scrub away the white in places, exposing some of the wood grain. It was a little too stark white when I was done, so I mixed some French Linen with water and applied that over the whitewash to tone it down.
I waxed the entire table with Annie Sloan clear wax. It looks like a weathered, beachy, farm table now.
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