Hi everyone! I'm still waiting for our laptop to be repaired, so in the meantime I've been taking trips to my in-laws to use their desktop. Remember last April when refinished a craiglist dining table? You can read about it here.
As soon as I finished that table, I was happy with it, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted. It was too pretty. And being a professional cosmetologist I knew, pretty means maintenance.
After living with it for 8 months, I was right. The smooth, dark finish was just begging to be scratched and burned. With 2, destructive 4 year-olds I knew I needed something a little more rough around the edges.
I have quite a collection of table legs and parts that I've been hoarding storing in my garage for years now. I happened to have this great set of chunky, rustic pine legs that I pulled off a $10 yard-sale table. After the holiday and boutique season started to wind down, I finally found some time to work on a project for myself.
*I will warn you now, I took these photos late in the afternoon with crappy lighting. They looked great on my camera's little screen, but once I got them up here I saw how terribly blurry they are. Sorry! Don't you hate when that happens?
I thought about taking step-by-step photos, but I decided that there are enough farmhouse table tutorials out there, we don't need another one. I basically came up with a hybrid of the Turned Leg Farmhouse Table and the classic Farmhouse Table from Ana White's website.
I did come up with a couple new ways to age the wood. For example, using a hand saw to dig scratches in the edges, making them look cracked and split.
My favorite part of the table was the little industrial touch I gave it with some 2" lag bolts, washers, and a drill bit. They are only decorative, but I placed them in spots to make it look like they are holding the table together.
For the finish on the top, I played a little around with the stain untill I got exactly what I wanted. I first applied a coat of 50% Rustoleum's Ultimate stain in Sunbleached and 50% Rustoleum's Ultimate stain in Dark Walnut. It was a nice, medium grey color, but it was a little too uniform in color and almost had a slight purple hue to it.
After the first coat was completely dry, I brushd on single coat of Dark Walnut by Minwax. Much better. More of a natural, old wood color. I then sealed the top with one coat of wipe on polyurethane. Then, to bring out more of the character of the wood, I applied a soft black glaze that I mixed up.
That's exactly what I was looking for. Old wood. Not exactly weathered wood, just old stained wood. Slightly grey, medium-dark brown. This photo is the best representation of the color on my monitor. It reminds me of Mushroom wood, which often is what reclaimed Barnwood is.
Pardon the blurry photo. The base received one coat of Dark Walnut stain, followed by 2 coats of antique white milk paint. To get the chippyness, I simply let the milk paint do it's thing. Once it was dry, I scraped off the flaking paint with a scraper.
Both the top and the base got about 5 coats of matte Polyurethane to seal everything. Yes, I put polyurethane over white paint. I realize it can yellow. This is a kitchen table people. In my opinon, wax and oils just don't cut it when it comes to the constant wear and tear a family's kitchen table gets.
I could have gone with polyacrylic and not stressed about the yellowing, but I really wanted a matte finish, and the lowest sheen I've been able to find in polyacrylic is satin. If you have found a flat polyacrylic, PLEASE let me know! You'll be my new best friend.
Also, every notice that matte polyurethane isn't really matte? There is still a very suble sheen. I was hoping for total mattes-ville. If you have found a good dead flat top coat, share the love.
Suble sheen or not, I'm really happy with how my Industrial Farmhouse table turned out. This table is very "me". The one downside is now I'm itching to "industrialize" everything in my house.
Do you dig the industrial look too? Or is it just me?
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