Dining Set Makeover & Spread The Kindness Link Up On the Edge #760

The weather I have been waiting for has finally (mostly) arrived and I have been taking great advantage of the dry days to get some painting done. I have a list of spring and summer home projects that is so long that it requires three columns to fit it all on one page. Last week, I was able to tackle a pretty big project and cross it off my list. My shoulders hurt like hell by the time I was finished, but it was worth it because I now have the dining room table of my dreams.

Nearly three years ago, I shared my dining room makeover when I painted the boring cream colored walls in lovely shades of green. I also featured my DIY burlap curtains which I really loved but have since changed to shaggy raggy valances which I love even more. The “Seaglass” Shaggy Raggy Valance hangs over the back windows and the “Woodland” Shaggy Raggy Valance hangs above the side windows.

I was very content with the results of my dining room makeover, however, all of the dining room furniture is in desperate need of a makeover as well. Actually, all of the furniture in my house is in desperate need of a makeover, which is why my project list is three columns long. I have already completed and crossed off a few smaller furniture projects that I haven’t shared yet because I am too excited to share my dream dining room table and chairs.

All of the pieces of our dining room set came to us secondhand. The bench was handed down from friends, the chairs were passed down from my mother-in-law, and I found the table 15 years ago in a Craigslist ad for $100. This table is one of my best ever secondhand purchases. It is a heavy duty solid wood table that would probably cost a few thousand dollars if I bought it brand new.

The lady who sold us the table shared memories of every scratch, pen mark, and paint splatter that it acquired over the years while she raised her family around it. At first, she apologized for all the marks but I told her that I really loved them and the memories just gave it more personality. Over the next 15 years of raising my family around the very same table, it acquired even more scratches, pen marks, and paint splatters all with their own stories and cherished memories. But the wood was starting to get all bubbly and a little too chippy peely for my taste. So in the interest of preserving the best table ever, I gave it a makeover. Now all of those memories are sealed and preserved beneath the layers of paint and furniture wax.

The bench was the first piece to get a paint job. She started out all black with a wood colored seat. I always liked this bench but I always hated that it was black and I never really liked that it was two-toned with the natural wood seat. So I chose the leftover green paint that I used for the dining room walls, turned it into chalk paint, and made the bench green. One layer of furniture wax and a quick buffing and my sister didn’t even recognize it as the same bench that has been at my dining room table for nearly 15 years.

I can’t remember exactly when my mother-in-law gave us the chairs but we have had them for many years now. Not as long as the table and bench, but definitely a fair amount of time. There are two captain’s chairs and four regular chairs in the set. After I painted the bench, I realized that I had exactly seven different shades of green paint…one for each seat around the table…so I painted each chair in a different shade of green.

By the time the chairs were completed, I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to paint the table. I had a few different ideas swirling around in my head until I went over to really look at the table. Once I noticed all the lines of the wood in perfect grid format, I knew immediately that I wanted a patchwork table in all seven shades of green. So I taped off the lines and numbered each section from 1 to 7, making sure that two of the same numbers didn’t touch.

Then I mixed all seven colors into my homemade chalk paint and numbered each jar of paint 1 through 7. The next step was painting. Three coats of paint were needed which I was able to apply fairly quickly. Chalk paint dries faster than regular paint and I had a fan blowing on the table to induce a quicker dry time as well. After three coats were applied in one color, I did allow at least an hour before moving my tape lines. Although I wasn’t that worried about the tape pulling up some paint because I was going to distress the table anyway. I prefer to distress furniture when I paint it because it blends with any natural distressing that will happen in the future.

Once all the painting was done and properly dried, I lightly sanded the whole table to give it the distressed look, dusted it off, applied the furniture wax, and buffed it.

It turned out even better than I imagined and I am so pleased with myself for what I have created!

Do you keep lists of projects like I do? What are you working on now?

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