Done and {DREAMY}

Ok people, are you ready for picture-mania!!?? I sure hope so :)
Our newly refinished dining set is DONE and I am thrilled with how it turned out!!!! This was a really big project! HUGE! It took hours and hours of hard work and a lot of patience, but it is finally finished. Woo hoo!!!! I'll start off with the after shot and then show you how we got there.

You ready!!????????
BAM!

Do you LOVE it!!?? I freakin' LOVE it so so so much!!!!

Here's some back story for you:
The house that I currently live in is what my entire extended family calls "the family house." My grandparents moved here from Los Angeles in 1982. They lived here until they passed away (first my sweet Nana, and then my Tata - that's what we called them). After my Nana passed away in 1997, my mom moved in with my Tata to help take care of him. After he passed away in 2007, my mom continued to live here on her own. At that time, Josh, Noah, and I lived in an 1,100 square foot condo about 15 minutes away. Once Hayden came into the picture 2 years later, our 2 bedroom one bath condo just wasn't cutting it anymore. So, we decided to switch places with my mom. She moved into the condo, and we took over the mortgage of "the family house." Even though my mom doesn't live here anymore, this house is still where the family gathers for all major holidays. It's still considered "the family house" and always will be. The main reason why I'm telling you all of this is because the dining table we used to have didn't expand at all. It sat a maximum of 6 people and that was that. So, at Christmas and Thanksgiving, we ended up setting up multiple tables in multiple rooms and it just wasn't ideal. I have been looking on Craig's List and at Thrift shops for the perfect set that can expand to fit our family gatherings and I finally found one on Craig's List. Here is the before shot:

(not the best "before" shot, but I forgot to take one before we got started. You get the gist, right?). It has 6 chairs (2 with arms) and 3 leaves so it can be a HUGE table :)
Here is a shot of the cushions. They weren't very comfy, so I added a layer of foam over the existing fabric before I recovered them (I cut the foam with our electronic knife that is usually only used on Turkey Day).

I learned a couple of things about myself while working on this project.
1. I am LAZY
2. I am not very good at hand painting furniture
3. I am a short-cutter
4. I am impatient (Geez, I'm starting to sound like a really awesome person, huh!?)
Anyway, after learning all of these super great things, my husband decided that he had no choice but to get involved in this project. A dining table is a highly used piece of furniture and since this new (used) set is the very last one I am ever going to be allowed to buy....ever, he wanted it to be done right (& I don't blame him one bit). Here are some pictures of the process:

Our plan was to paint the table legs, apron, and all 6 chairs in a color called "Vermont Cream" by Behr. Then we were going to stain the table top a dark walnut color. We originally planned to use my sister's power paint sprayer to spray the base and legs of the table, and all 6 chairs. Josh started spraying but for some reason it just didn't look right. It sprayed on super thick and drippy and was definitely NOT the right way to go.

So we ended up having to sand off the clumps and paint it by hand (you can see the thick drips at the top of the squares).

We bit the bullet and bought the infamous Purdy brushes and got right to work (and as you can see below, a lot of the painting was done after hours). I helped him paint all the chairs by hand (luckily we had already successfully sprayed the caned portion of the chairs otherwise I don't know what we would have done).

Then it was time to sand and stain the table top & leaves

It was really hard to sand the edges of the table....REALLY hard to get in all those grooves. Josh ended up wrapping sandpaper around a block of wood and we used the edge to grind into all of the grooves. It was not fun. Not at all.

After the table top was sanded down, the staining process began. The grain of this table top went all different directions, so it was a bit hard to "go with the grain."

We used Minwax stain in Dark Walnut. It took about 3 coats to get our desired color. We knew this was going to need to be super durable so when it came time to either wax or use polyurethane, we opted for poly. I just knew that if I ended up with water rings on this table, It would be hard not to kill the person who did it (totally kidding). My father in law mentioned that if we thinned down the poly by adding water (we used water based poly), it would spread on more evenly and not leave brush strokes. We used a foam brush to apply it and it went on really well!! I think we ended up doing about 5 coats of poly on the table and although it is a bit shinier than I had anticipated, I really like the sheen and know for sure that it will stand the test of time. Ok, enough talking, let's get to the pictures :)

PICTURE-MANIA!!!!!
The 2 end chair cushions got covered in this Anthropologie-ish floral fabric. You can also see the light distressing on the chairs. I was a bit nervous to go too "shabby"  with it since this set will be in my life f-o-r-e-v-e-r! Ha ha!

We will mostly use this set with one leaf in it. Unfortunately the wood grain on the leaves doesn't really go the same way as the rest of the table top, but since it is all the same color stain, I think it looks ok.

The other 4 chairs got the neutral chain link rope beige fabric. A little mismatched & cool looking if I do say so myself :)

The rim of the table was actually wood, while the actual table top was veneer. You can see how the stain soaked in much darker on the raw wood. I really like the contrast it gives.

If you click to zoom on the below pic, you can see a bit more of the light distressing (done with 120 grit sandpaper).

Here's the big picture for you :)

Ooooooooh, Ahhhhhhh!

Now, if only I knew how to cook! Ha ha! Want to come over for some Mac N Cheese??? Mmmm.
I am SO happy with how our new dining set turned out! I am also happy to announce that even my husband agrees that it was well worth all of the effort. You like???!! Hope so!!
Happy happy Friday everyone!