Woodworking Family Life Style: Garage Sale Table Redo

While out and about a couple of weeks ago doing our garage sale thing, we found this sofa table-coffee table-not sure what kind of table, for only 5 bucks. Well, we sure couldnt pass that up and turns out it was perfect timing.

Ive been gathering pieces here and there to start redoing our oldest sons room. My first born is 19 soon to be 20, going to college and working and I thought it was about time to give him a more adult room. His room is the last on our bedroom design agenda, so, Im pretty excited about getting started on it. It has looked the exact same for the last 6 years and I know he is ready for a change.

One of the things I needed to find for him was a bedside table and so I thought, why not turn this table into one. The top of the table is just awful. Paint, oil, gunk, and a thick lacquer type top coat. Heres a couple of shots of the table when we brought it home.

Its very retro and cool. And here is a close up of the nasty top.

When I first saw it, I said to myself, "self, you are going to have to sand that thing for 97 hours to remove all that gunk on top of it." But then, I looked underneath........

Underneath the wood was absolutely beautiful and in its raw natural state. Why someone would want to cover this up with all that other stuff is beyond me. What I decided to do was remove the legs and flip the top. Perfect!! And no sanding!

The legs were dirty and rusty but with a little work and some sandpaper,

I brought them back to their original retro condition. Next, I cut a 20 inch long piece from the center of the original tabletop to be the top of the new bedside table.

After reattaching the legs to the opposite side of the newly cut piece,

I got to work on the top.

What I really liked about this table was that it was solid wood. To be more specific, it was walnut with narrow oak pieces joining them where Ive shown with arrows. I loved that, so, what I wanted to do was highlight the two tone effect of the wood. First, I sanded the top just to smooth it out.

As luck would have it, the strips of oak were the exact same width as my masking tape, so next, I taped off the strips the arrows are pointing to so I could apply raw dark tung oil to the wider walnut pieces in between. The oak pieces I wanted to leave as is. The purpose of doing this was to make the walnut stand out a little more to emphasize the two different types of wood. I got so excited at this point, I forgot to take photos of those last couple of steps.

I applied the raw dark tung oil very carefully with a rag and then removed the tape immediately. Ive done this with paint many times but never with oil, so, I wasnt sure if it would bleed or seep through the tape or not. It didnt and I was thrilled with the look! After I let that dry, I coated the entire top with finishing paste wax in natural. And ta-da!!

The table got its own little photo shoot outside. Next time, I will remember to wipe the crumbs from the cookie I was eating while taking photos, off the table. Im not ready to put this into my sons room yet cause I havent started painting. But I did want to go ahead and share it with you. Youll see it again when I blog about the room redo.