End Table Refinishing!

Now I am not trying to say that I am a Goodwill expert but.... Hello, my name is Shawn and I am a Goodwill addict.

"Hi Shawn, welcome to the group." Thank you, thank you!

So, it seems to me that on most Sunday's furniture is 50% off at Goodwill....

A while back, during our usual every other Sunday or so trip my mom and I spotted this end table for only $5!!!

I called George and he said, buy it! My plan while at the store was to take it home and paint it a nice dark brown chocolaty kind of color. When George took one look at this table he had other plans!

He wanted to strip off the unknown layers of paint and stain it instead! I was up for the challenge!

To strip the layers of paint, you just bush on the stripper, and the paint begins to bubble like the shot on the right.

Then scrape off the layers of paint! You may need to scrape as much as you can, then paint on more stripper, then scrape and so on until you most of the paint off. After that, George sanded the wood down to a nice smooth surface. Now, I'm calling this a DIY project but in reality, you need someone who knows a little bit about stripping and sanding. George is an exceptional carpenter and he has every tool imaginable. If you asked him, I'm sure he would say the sander that he used was invaluable. It would have been much more difficult to sand it by hand with paper alone.

Here is the little table with 9 lives all ready for stain! This guy had lived many times before, underneath the taupe color that it was when I bought it, was a deep dark blue and a muted green! We chose a dark rich red stain to coordinate with the other pieces in our living room.

After he was finished staining it, I applied the first coat of clear poly and he scuffed and did 2 more coats!

And here's where this little guy lives now in our living room!

What do you think? I Georgie did a good job, hey? Not just with the staining but also by indulging my thrifting, upcycling, blogging ways! Thanks Georgie. :)