Our Dining Table Makeover

Hi there! I'm tackling furniture painting projects left and right these days now that our summer has begun! I've been wanting to do something...anything...with our very worn out dining table top since last winter. When I saw this post from Domestic Imperfection, I decided to go for it before I could talk myself out of it all! :)

Here is the before picture...

The blonde and white dining set went much better in our old house, but seemed to clash with the gray walls we inherited (and love!) in our current dining room. Plus, you can't tell from this pic how badly the previous finish on the tabletop had been worn off in the "high traffic" areas! 

Initially, I had wanted to paint the whole thing white so I had plenty of paint on hand but I was nervous to leave such a blank canvas, so to speak, for my kids to put marker and paint stains all over. I thought a patterned tabletop would help disguise any kid-related snafus, maybe! The new table concept would involve sanding down our tabletop, painting a stencil across it, applying a darker wood stain, then sealing the whole thing with polycrylic.

Lucky me, I already had a really cute $4 fleur-de-lis style stencil on hand from my curtain project! I just didn't want to spend $50 on a large-scale stencil...but it took many hours of stenciling a repeating pattern in exchange, way into the late night hours! I started in the middle and worked my way out. I love how it turned out!

Here "she" is! (The table and I are besties now, after all these hours spent together!!)

My husband used his orbital sander to remove the old blonde finish...thanks dear! Then I applied three coats of Minwax Wood Finish in Dark Walnut. I also sanded with our orbital sander in-between each coat. This was my first time working with wood stains, and whew...what a smell! I'm not a fan.

The final step was applying a polycrylic sealant, also a first for me. I'll definitely use it again on all my painting projects! It really leaves such a nice, professional (and durable) finish. I did three coats, lightly sanding with a fine grit sanding block in-between coats.

 Can you believe all of this started with one tiny fleur-de-lis stencil?? I think it has a cute little French country look to it, which I love. More pics...

As you can see, we have the ubiquitous $20 gray floral rug Ikea rug that's just such a great value. Our dining room is strangely the largest room downstairs, so I decided to put two rugs together to span the table area instead of going sans rug. At twenty bucks each, no one is too heartbroken if our our troop of young children spill something our our conjoined rugs. Which they do...a lot. ;)

I'm so in love with our "new" table!! We actually served dinner on it last night and it was such a cool experience! After using our rickety extra drop-leaf table for the past several days, we felt like we were in some kind of fancy restaurant...ha ha! And I'm so happy with our all-white chairs. They even seem easier to clean now, thanks to a final coat of polycrylic.

Thank you so much to Ashley from Domestic Imperfection for inspiring me to do this table makeover and providing great guidance! I have a few other furniture DIY projects to share in the upcoming weeks, including our decoupaged bookcase that is something I just love. :) Thanks for stopping by!!