Yes, but can we use the table for Thanksgiving?

In one of our previous installments we mentioned what a great find our table was: so beautiful, so functional, so expandable, and so affordable. All we needed to do was refinish it. And while our initial assessment of the table’s beauty, functionality, and expandability remains true, for those of you considering such a project I feel a certain responsibility to share our experience restoring this fine piece of furniture, and that process’s effect on the last point: affordability.

Several weeks before Thanksgiving, which was to be the grand unveiling of the table, we took it apart, hauled it into the garage and started the refinishing process. If you’ve never started a refinishing project it can actually be quite satisfying to pull off the layers of stain and finish and start to see the actual wood. After several rounds of stripper and many sheets of sandpaper, we were able to marvel at the beauty of our table. It’s important to note that we were originally told that this table was made of solid walnut and as such we followed Minwax’s directions for finishing this table with that assumption.

With the table down to the bare wood we began the staining process, all too trusting of the Minwax directions. We applied a thin coat of custom stain mix (per Minwax's directions), let it sit, and wiped it off. What Minwax doesn't tell you is that a thin coat of stain really means no stain at all.

Unfortunately we didn’t discover this until we put the first coat of urethane on over the stain. Within a few hours pin-sized puddles of stain started creeping up through the not-yet-dry urethane. Crap. Confident that our good friends at Minwax knew what they were talking about we followed their sage advice: “Re-strip and sand the table, apply four coats of mineral spirits to the table, and then re-stain and finish.” Once again, those of you who’ve worked with wood have already discovered our grave error—mineral spirits should be used sparingly, especially when the wood with which you’re working is mahogany, not walnut. The wood would not stop bleeding stain!

I’d like to pause for a moment and also share that Kerry and I had been working on a lovely set of chairs while finishing the table. The chairs presented their own challenges to the refinishing process and finally resulted in a trip to the furniture restoration place to be stripped. Did I mention that we were four days away from Thanksgiving? While delivering the chairs (and therefore delivering ourselves from our own personal Hell) to be stripped we picked the owner’s brain about the table. He reassured us that we were close, mineral spirits never should have entered the picture and that we just needed to keep heat and air moving on the table. The table finally dried, we applied two coats of stain, five coats of urethane and it was nearly cured in time for Thanksgiving dinner—dry enough anyway.

The chairs on the other hand were nearly dry the morning of, but since we needed to sit people at our table we opted to put pillow cases over the chairs to ensure nobody’s sweater stayed with the chair as they got up for more pie. But the table, chairs, and our zest for refinishing projects are done.

The table before:

The chairs before:

The naked table:

Kerry putting the recovered seats on the chairs:

The finished chair:
The finished table:

With the table and chairs mostly dry we had a great Thanksgiving and successfully sat ten people around our new table and had a wonderful meal.