My first furniture project - table complete!

Our kitchen table is 10 1/2 years old and looks it! It has seen better days that's for sure!!! I have had a table idea in my mind for about 6 months now so back in October 2011, I decided to make some plans for Dan to build it (which he is awesome at!) and then I would paint and distress it. It ended up being a bigger project than I thought though, which every project seems to turn out that way :)!

He built the top from wood we purchased at Lowes - pine wood since it distresse easily.

Then he built the skirting. The legs were a little bit harder to find . . . I didn't care for the size at Lowe's, and ordering the legs online was EXPENSIVE!!! ($60 per unfinished table leg!) So, then I remembered Craigslist- I actually got really really lucky and found a guy in Greer who had a lot of unfinished farm style tables listed. And after emailing him he allowed me to just purchase the table legs - YAY!!!!

Here is Dan putting the unfinished table together ~

For the top of the table, we literally beat it to distress it . . . we used a hammer, wire brush, chain and sand paper. It was very stress relieving!!!

Then I wiped it with a clean cloth and gave it a good coat of dark walnut minwax stain on the top and underneath.

I distressed it again on the edges using a medium grit sand paper. And repeated the process of wiping with the clean cloth and lightly restaining those sanded areas.

I let it dry for several days and then coated it with 3 good coats of satin poly clearcoat (sanding with a very fine sand paper in between coats). Make sure to let each poly coat dry for at least a day (we let it dry for 2 days in between). We gave the underneath side one good coat.

This was the finished product of the top of the top ~

For the table skirting and legs . . .

We picked out a red - a darker rich red.

I gave the entire body 4 to 5 good coats of the red paint, letting each coat dry well inbetween.

I then used a medium grit sponge sander ($5 for a 2pk at Lowe's) and began to age the legs.

To give it the really aged look I took the dark walnut stain that I used on the table top and with a small canvas style paint brush I painted the stain on the areas I had sanded and also on the areas I wanted to have shadowing. Then I used a rag and gently wiped the stain. A little trick I learned is the amount of pressure you use in wiping away the stain with your rag matters!!! It became a technique!

Allow it to dry overnight.

Here is a pic of the finished legs~

The table is complete!!!