Small Home Improvement Project - An Old Table

This small home improvement project was for my daughter's new home this time.  Her roommate had an old kitchen table that was slated for the trash.  My daughter knew it was fixable and promptly offered up my services to repair and refurbish the table.  She dragged it home and as soon as I found a window of time I got right to work.

 

A solid wood table is a hard one to give up on, even one this gross and neglected

The table was solid wood with a wobbly leg.  The table top had lots of nicks, dents, dings, scratches and some red paint as well as what I imagined to be glitter glue all over.  It truly needed some love.  So I dug out the sander.

 

It took a lot of sanding to remove the damage and make it smooth again

First thing was to flip the table over and tighten up the legs.  All I needed to do that was a phillips head screwdriver and a wrench to snug up all the fasteners.  Then I spent a fair amount of time sanding the top until it was cleaned up and smooth.

 

I gave the entire table a really good wipe down before spray painting the legs and the apron of the table with black spray paint in a satin finish that I already had in the garage.

 

Hard to believe this is the same table top

The top got a couple good coats of Espresso stain I had leftover from our stairway project.  I let the stain dry overnight and the next day I gave it four coats of exterior grade varathane that I also happened to have in the garage.  I figured it would be a good choice for a kitchen table in a home full of college students.  Plus, I already had some on hand making this project not only a fun little challenge, but also a $0 project!

 

All complete and ready to go back to its home

What do you think?  Looks pretty good, huh?