Before/After - Kitchen Table

 When Tyler and I got married 5 1/2 years ago (wow, can't believe it's been that long already, time just flies!) my parents were nice enough to give us their old kitchen table.  The one that we had when I was growing up.  

This one.

Not sure how old it is but if you look close you can tell it's see lots of days of kids coloring on it (Trey and Hope of course, I wouldn't do something like that!) scratch marks, even little holes that Tyler accidentally chiseled into it when trying to make his own holster.  It's served us well but I was ready for an update.  I priced some tables and chairs and after my slight heart attack decided we could just restain and paint it ourselves for LOTS cheaper.  I thought I wanted an all black table but after seeing what a really dark stain would look like, decided it'd look fabulous with the stain and black paint.  

Notice how dirty our garage floor is?  Hint - look at the bottom of my sons feet.  yuck.

 Here are the chairs "Before" also from my parents, one was broken and I think they've been painted and repainted a couple times

So one Saturday afternoon I decided I was going to get started on this project.  We borrowed a sander from our friends and after a little instruction from Tyler (I had never done any of this before) I worked all afternoon while he went into work for a few hours.  I decided it was ready (I have no idea what I based that on) and started staining.  Big mistake.  I hadn't sanded down far enough and the stain didn't take.  BIG oops.  Tyler came home and thankfully is used to me messing up projects and just smiled and took over sanding it all again.  Again...oops!  I felt so bad.  But this is the point where he basically took over and finished the whole project for me.  Thanks, hun!  Oh and for those of you concerned, I wore a mask while sanding so I didn't breathe in all that dust.  

Here is the table after Tyler re-sanded it and stained it.  From the picture the stain looks black but you'll see in later pictures it's just a really dark brown.

 Tyler seemed to enjoy having a project to work on periodically (we weren't really in any hurry to get it done). 

You're welcome, hunny, I planned it that way all along :)

Painting the bottom half of the table is done and drying...

The legs are all painted

Now just need to put it all together and voila! new table!  Our table has been done for a couple weeks now but we weren't quite sure what to do about the chairs.  Considered painting the current ones black but then decided that would take too much time and effort when we really didn't like the style anyway.  So onto searching craigslist I went and we found 4 chairs from Pier 1 that fit our style (and more importantly our budget!)

and here is that (almost) completed project!  We just either need a bench or two more chairs to complete it.

 I love, love, love how it turned out! 

Here is a closer look at the stain on the wood.  See, more of a dark brown than black.

 We've tested it out and it works great! :)  Now we just need to find a house to put it in.  Oh boy, more on that later....

And one more time just for kicks....

                           BEFORE

After