A Table Makeover

When we moved into our home over a year ago, we had friends at the same time who moved and left us this table:

It has been the perfect table for outside activities...painting, eating, and experiments of all kinds...BUT it needed an overhaul in a bad way.  One day I finally got myself in gear and turned the old table into this:

Much better, right?!

So let me take you through the process.  Step 1- Sand, sand, sand, sand and sand.

Step 2: I stained the table in a dark walnut stain...at this point I was worried it was TOO dark, but I was not going to sand, sand, sand again, so I figured I would make this work!:)

Step 3:  Taped down a chevron pattern

Step 4: Painted the striped with a light gray outdoor paint. 

Step 5: Then I took off the tape to show this:

The lines were not crisp and beautiful like I imagined, so I kept working with it. I sanded down the top, which brought the wood grain out on parts of the chevron design (which I loved), but the gray was still too stark...

Step 6: I took the stain, painted some on and wiped it right off..and voila...JUST as I wanted:

So a before and after together:

and up close and personal:

It was a great lesson in figuring out what to do next. Sometimes I get to a point with a project and just want to stop because it "seems" ruined, but this one really reminded me how amazing things can really turn out when you keep on working with it!

Thanks for stopping by!

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