Projects: Somewhat-Restored Farm Table

We bought this table just a couple months ago from a little antiques shop across the street that was going out of business. It only cost $35! I don't have a Before picture to show, but the table looks pretty much as it did when we bought it. Except we had to buy all new screws and hinges, replace some rotten pieces of wood on the underside, and remove the polyurethane coating and restore the old finish of the top piece of wood.

The table is made of oak (I think), and the legs are painted with this really striking retro-seafoam green color. I fell in love with this table when I first saw it, and it was fun for me to spend a few weekends redoing the fine details

Here's a shot of the table with the polyurethane coating still intact. I just did a quick-and-dirty sanding of the table to get off the topcoat, and we disassembled the rest of the table to see which screws could be replaced.

This was my favorite part: after I sanded the coating off, I wiped the table down with water to remove the dust, then I rubbed in some Restore-A-Finish. I didn't sand enough to remove all of the old finish, so the wood still retained most of its lovely color.

Then I rubber on some orange-scented beeswax stuff and let it soak into the wood for about 30 minutes before buffing it off.

We were able to replace all of the old screws on the table, but we had a little bit of a challenge with the hinges. I couldn't find any hinges at the hardware store that were the same size as the old hinges, which was bad news because the hinges had been chiseled into the table. However, Andy chiseled out a few more chunks (which was easier than I thought it would be), and we screwed in the new hinges without many incidents (note for the future: don't invest in cheap screws!).

The table is in the kitchen right now, which gives me extra counter space for food prep. I just love finding cheap furniture at yard sales/antiques stores/street corners and restoring it! (Except since I don't have a garage, all the dust from sanding gets everywhere!)