Kitchen table progress

I spent this weekend hard at work on our new kitchen table.

A couple of people have asked me about it recently and I figured that a month and a half was plenty long enough to procrastinate about it. It was all the fault of those curly legs - I was really not looking forward to stripping and sanding them. Luckily, I was able to disassemble the table to work on it so it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared.

I used Natura Safe Strip that I picked up at Home Hardware to take off the old finish. I was skeptical that it would work, but it did a pretty terrific job. The only drawback is that you have to leave it on for 30-60 minutes to allow it to break down the old finish. That slowed things down a bit, but it was nice to not have to worry about fumes and nasty chemicals.

I was a little concerned after I finished stripping and sanding the pieces as everything was a different colour. The stain was completely removed from the two upper legs, but I couldn't get the four small lower legs anywhere near as light. Even with multiple applications of the stripper.

And the table top was even worse.

I decided to cross my fingers and soldier on and applied the walnut stain to all of the pieces. And I was pleasantly surprised that the tone of the wood all evened out.

I managed to get one coat of satin finish polyurethane on this afternoon. Three more coats to go - each one needs to dry overnight, so by the end of the week the table should be all finished.

Then it's on to the bench that I currently have sitting in the bay window in the dining room. That's an even bigger point of procrastination because it involves upholstery, and it really looks like a two man job. I need my sister to hurry up and get home from Florida!