Farmhouse Style Table & Chairs

Howdy Y'all!  I just got home from restocking my booth at De'France...I've sold a lot of things out of there recently and didn't get to go restock for a couple of days, so today it HAD to be done.  I'll try to post some pictures of that booth space soon for you.

In the meantime, I'll share with you a table that I just finished.  Let me just say, dressers are my thing...tables are not.  Sure, I do tables, but man oh man they take a lot of time compared to dressers.  However, some WONDERFUL friends of ours from church gave us this table and chairs.  We used our trailer and helped them move recently, then they got a new table and passed this one on to us as a thank you.  But, they are definitely the ones that deserve a BIG THANK YOU!!  This is what it looked like afterwards.  I was going for a bit of a farmhouse feel.  These pictures are incredibly bright for some reason and my camera somehow destroyed my good "before" picture.  Maybe one day, I'll be better with pictures.  Until then, you'll just have to bear with me. 

The chairs and table started out VERY light.  They were a very light wood with a super, super light sort of white wash to them.  The chairs looked like this:

 When I picked it up from them it was all broke down in pieces.  So after my camera ate the good pictures, here's the best before picture I have left of the table top and the rest of the pieces.  There is also an additional leaf that goes with it.

 I used my sander with a 60 grit paper to remove the light stain or paint or whatever it was and the poly finish.  I then used 80, 120, and 220 grit paper afterwards to smooth it up before staining.  In this picture you can begin to see on the right side that I am getting down to bare wood.

 I sanded down the chairs too, but not down to bare wood because they were getting painted.  I just sanded them enough to remove the shiny finish.  I primed them by hand and let them dry and then got ready to use my paint sprayer to put the top coat on.

 When using my paint sprayer, The Husband requires me to wear this.  I'll just consider it to be his way of being sweet and wanting to protect me! :)  And, hey, at least it gives us all some good laughs when we look at a picture of me wearing it!

Here's my paint sprayer from Lowe's (I think it was around $80 and it works great for me so far).  Took me a couple times using it to figure out the adjustments, but now I love it.  I still do the majority of my painting by hand because I enjoy it, but for chairs and things like that, this baby is pretty handy.  There's also a picture of our air compressor that I use to run the sprayer.  I am in LOVE with our air compressor.  I use this baby nearly daily.  It's my favorite cleaning tool...I use it to clean all kinds of things.

 To get started, I mix my paint ($5 oops paint from Lowe's in a creamish color) and water.  Don't know the exact ratio, but probably about 70 percent paint and 30 percent water.  I just use a paint stick and stir them together in a plastic cup and then pour into my sprayer canister.

 I used it to spray 2 coats on the table apron and the chairs.

 And here's a peek at what our driveway and garage look like while we're working.  Just keeping it real people.  We're both pretty OCD about things having a home and being clean, but when you're working on multiple things, this is just what happens.

 Once everything was painted (except for the top of the table), I stained the table top with my go-to stain, dark walnut by Minwax.

 As you can see in the picture above, I messed up.  When sanding I didn't get deep enough into the bare wood and there were places where poly still existed even though I couldn't see it.  That's what makes it look a bit splotchy (is that a word?).  Thankfully, it fits with the rustic, farmhouse feel, so I decided to leave it.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do the the base and the chairs.  I didn't really want to distress them, so I ended up antiquing them with some dark walnut stain.   The top left picture below shows the before, the top right shows me wiping stain on, and the middle pic shows it once I've wiped the stain off after letting it set for just a bit.  Just gives it a slight antiqued feel. 

 Below is another example...the left side of the apron doesn't have any stain yet, and the right side has stain that just needs to be wiped off, rubbed in, and blended.

 I ended up using this technique on the entire table base and all the chair frames.

  Before and after "antiquing" the chairs.

Before and after "antiquing" in a different light.  Kinda hard to see, but in person, it makes a huge difference.

 

For the seats, I ended up using a dark burlap fabric that I picked up at Wal-Mart.  The original cushions were clean, just outdated, so I simply covered over them.

 Here's an example of one of the arm chairs.

 

Here's the completed set in all it's farmhouse glory.  This set is currently for sale.

 Just another view of the after.  I'm so happy to have this one finished.  By the way...that's a neighbors house in the background.  Since we live on a cul-de-sac, our front yards are small and close.  Good thing we love our neighbors!

Updated to add: The table top was sealed with multiple coats of Polycrilic and the chair frames were sealed with clear wax.

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