Be careful what you wish for …
Posted by Rick & Sarah - 05/02/04 at 10:02:23 amAfter over a year of eating at the coffee table, spilling food and drink down the fronts of our respective shirts, we decided that enough was enough. We needed a dining room table, and pronto. Besides, we have a dining room now; it seemed a shame to let it go to waste.
And so the great dining room table hunt began. We ambulated the antique shops, caroused the consignment stores, wandered the web, and perused the papers, slowly searching for a terrific table for our beloved bungalow. Eventually, we decided that if we were going to attempt to match Sarah’s grandmother’s china cabinet we were going to have to finish it ourselves…
We were under a deadline to get all of the chairs stained and sealed in time for our Boxing Day Party, so we started right away. The first step was to sand the wood with fine sandpaper (220 grade). Everything had arrived pre-sanded and fairly smooth from the factory, but it is always a good idea to go over everything with sandpaper and then steel wool before applying the stain.
The stain was called “candlelight,” which we chose for the beautiful copper undertones that matched the china cabinet nearly perfectly. The parawood (a light wood which resembles maple) is not super-porous, so the stain gel went on smoothly without soaking in too much. The gel product was very easy to work with; there were no worries about drips or streaks. We simply wiped down all surfaces with a tack cloth, then used a clean cotton cloth to rub the stain on in the direction of the grain. Buildup was easily removed with either a dry cloth or by applying wet stain out of the can to partially dried stain, which immediately got rid of residue and dark spots. It took about two hours to stain one chair, working carefully to get into the joins and around the slats that made up the chair backs.
After staining each chair, we let it dry overnight, then went over it lightly with the fine steel wool and tack cloth again. We decided to go with a single coat of stain, but multiple coats could have been applied for a darker shade. After applying the stain it was time to put on the coats of polyurethane, which also came in a gel form. Again, this was applied with a clean cotton cloth. It took far less polyurethane than stain to cover the same area, and also much less time: an average of 20 minutes per coat. We were advised by the furniture store staff that we would need at least 2 coats of polyurethane on every surface of the chairs and table, with additional coats recommended for the chair seats and the table top. We decided to go with 3 coats of poly on the chair seats and 5 coats total on the table top; extra protection against spills.
We did make our deadline for getting the chairs ready in time for our party, but the table had to wait until after the holidays. It was a lot of work, but well worth the end product: a beautiful dining room set that fits in with the simple elegance of our 1920’s bungalow!
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Having seen the table and chairs in person, the work was worth the effort. Everything looks great!
Comment by Josh — February 5, 2004 #
Very Nice…you guys are really going to town on that place, eh?
Comment by John Tischer — February 6, 2004 #
I feel like I am watching TLC!
Comment by Stephany — February 6, 2004 #
And damn but those chairs are comfy!
Comment by Yuriko — February 9, 2004 #
They look great! Nice work!
Comment by Don — February 13, 2004 #