Dining Room Table Project - Sanding

I have had quite a few projects going on lately. Refinishing the dining room table is one of them.

I have been reading a lot of DIY blogs (Do It Yourself) and refinishing a dining room table with a stained top and painted legs is a popular project.

Our dining room table was given too us shortly after Dan and I got married because a friend felt sorry for us eating on the coffee table every night. Thanks, John! This table is solid wood and sturdy, perfect candidate for a re-do.

I enlisted the help of my wonderful sister, Betsey to re-finish the table over Memorial Day weekend. I figured it would be easy enough with both of us working on it.

Oh you naive, naive little girl.

Do you have an idea how hard it is to sand varnish/polyurethane/stain off wood???? Wow, I sure do.

It took Betsey and I over 8 hours, spread out over the whole weekend to sand and clean the wood. Yikes! We even took Sunday off because we were so sore from sanding all day on Saturday.

Needless to say, it is still not finished yet. I hope to have all of the primer on by tonight.

Here she is in her original glory.

Lovely cracked finish.

White spots from putting something too hot on the table.

Cracked and worn chairs.

Now she's sanded down! 

Only the top of the table, seats of chairs, and part of the back of the chair were sanded to bare wood. All of the legs and back posts will be painted. They were only sanded enough to make paint stick.

Doesn't it seem easy? Blogs have a way of doing that. They fail to mention the hours of sanding, sore muscles, and multiple trips to Home Depot in search of more, grittier sand paper.

In hindsight, a stripping agent would have been a great thing to use from the start. The sanding process would have been much easier. Also, my co-worker mentioned a Dremmel would be a good tool to get with sanding attachments for the nooks and crannies. We just used our fingers. My skin is still rough from this experience.

You will also notice our sanding job on the chairs isn't stellar. This is because (1) we were TIRED of sanding and (2) thought the color variation would add character. Granted, I didn't think of (2) until 3 days and 8+ hours of sanding later, but that is besides the point. 

It's done!