Finally Finishing a Coffee Table

I have a confession to make… multitasking is not one of my strengths.  Definitely lots of room for improvement there.  Why I am sharing that little tidbit about myself with you?  Well, just in case you’ve been wondering why I’ve been MIA from my blog the past week and a half!  Things are a bit crazy in the Storywood Designs land… LOTS of projects in the pipeline… and that’s great because I love every one of them and they’re fun and fulfilling for me to work on.  But between working on several pieces of furniture at one time and Mike being in the midst of tax season, by the end of the day I’m wiped out and find myself crawling onto the couch to snuggle in with little boys with freshly washed hair and cuddly pj’s… and then I find myself lulled into the worlds of “Jessie” and “Good Luck Charlie”.   My blog has been the thing that has suffered from the cycle of painting and refinishing furniture by day and escaping into tween TV shows by night.  My new plan is to try and take 30 minutes each afternoon to sit down with a cup of hot tea and write.  We’ll see how that goes… like I said, juggling is not a talent of mine.

So it’s kind of fitting that I’m back with a post about a coffee table that took me FOREVER to refinish, right?!

Once upon a time, long, (embarrassingly) long ago I bought an unfinished coffee table at a yard sale.   This wasn’t just any yard sale… it was a yard sale held by the owner of a fabulous accessory and gift store in Raleigh.  She had all kinds of eye candy and fun finds for sale and needless to say, the sale was packed.   I couldn’t resist and got there just as things started up.  People were already walking out with goodies when I walked in but I found a few good finds.

Looking at all my finds from that September day has me longing for yard sale season… glad it’s right around the corner!

The highlight of the sale for me was finding a great, solid wood coffee table.  It had a farmhouse style with a chunky wood top, turned legs and a bottom shelf perfect for baskets.  Best of all, it was unfinished!  Any time I find an unfinished piece of furniture, I’m excited.  One of the most time consuming and labor intensive parts of refinishing furniture is the time it takes to strip and sand the old finish in order to apply the new.

A better “before” shot of the coffee table I found that day… in all its unfinished wood glory!

My mother-in-law was looking for a new table and I purchased it with her in mind.  We decided it a good fit for her space and came up with a general plan to finish it.  And then it sat.  In my workshop.  For months… and months.  I wish I was exaggerating… but sadly, I am not.  My mother-in-law said she wasn’t in a hurry to finish it and I took her words literally.  Projects kept popping up and the poor coffee table got pushed back… week after week.

Finally, after Thanksgiving, I hauled the table out from its corner of the workshop and dusted off the cobwebs started to prep it for finishing.  I had to give the top a good sanding… there were fingerprints and smudges from its prior life.  I knew we wanted to go dark with the stain and selected Minwax’s Dark Walnut for the top.  It was sealed with several coats of a satin Polyurethane.  The base got several coats of Maison Blanche’s Baguette and a liberal coat of dark wax.  I really wanted to darken the color of Baguette and since the base was unfinished, there wasn’t a prior finish to distress back to.  Leaving dark wax in all the turns of each table leg gave instant age to the coffee table.

I finally delivered the coffee table to my mother-in-law a few weeks ago… how sad is that?   But it made it to its happily ever after and my MIL wins the Most Patient Person of the Year award!

The silver lining where my hectic painting schedule is concerned?  I’ve got lots of great stories for the blog!  So, I’m off… to paint some more, pick up the boys from school and google tips to juggle a hectic life.  How do you all do it??

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