DIY Oak Table Makeover

My mama has had her dining table for a few years now. It was pretty unattractive when she first got it

but then she paid a woman re-do it for her to be a little more shabby chic. When she got it back we did a little makeover of the space by adding the shelves and chandelier and ended up with this...

• It turned out cute, but honestly it wasn't functional for her. The chairs sat really low and my mama is already short. Not to mention, the table itself was large and the chairs couldn't push all the way in so it took up a lot of space that her small apartment couldn't really accommodate. After living with it this way for a couple years, she decided to make a change. She sold her set and started looking for new, affordable options. I mentioned that I was hoping to get rid of my dining chairs and she gladly took them off my hands. The last piece was a table. She knew she wanted a smaller pedestal table so she kept a lookout on the Facebook Marketplace for the right one. It didn't take long! After a couple days a solid oak pedestal table WITH a leaf popped up for only $25! After messaging the seller and negotiating delivery (across town and up 40 stairs) she ended up paying $50 total. Absolute steal! The gentleman delivered it the next day and we came up with a plan to make it fit her style better. Originally, she wanted it painted all white, but I convinced her to do a white base with a wood top

To get the look we wanted we needed to sand down the original finish to the raw wood. This proved to be easy with both of us running our sanders at the same time with 50 grit paper.

Once the stripping was done we ran over it quickly with 120 grit paper to smooth everything out. Then, the staining began. We used an old rag with some Minwax English Chestnut stain.

After, we soaked our rag in water, dipped into white paint and did a quick white wash over the stain.

We let it dry for less than half an hour before bringing it inside and painting 2 coats of white paint onto the base.

I tried to convince her to leave it like this but she really wanted to distress it. To achieve that I used 120 grit paper on my mouse sander and ran over the edges and curves to create a worn look.

After adding in her "new" chairs and moving around some decor we ended up with this....

I'm not really into the super girly look but this dining room has my heart! Its my favorite part of her apartment now. Just goes to show that with very little money and a lot of hard work you can really change the whole look of a space.

---Jackie

For more pictures of my mama's apartment click here.