House projects - Trestle table refinishing

Trestle table refinishing

I’m not a woodworker or craftsman of any sort but I do appreciate solid wood furniture and wood in general. I will skimp on a few things but I would rather get quality stuff at the lowest price possible. We were dropping off some old books at a warehouse style thrift store when we spotted an awesome old trestle table that had been painted brown. I did a quick inspection of the table and everything was still intact and solid. I immediately snagged it for something around a hundred bucks and got it home ASAP. 

I removed the paint to find a layer of stain which I removed with Klean Strip premium stripper. The wood underneath was in decent shape but was lumpy with a lot of scalloped spots. I sanded the table with 220 then 280 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface but I didn’t want to take the character out of the table so I left it somewhat lumpy. You can see by the way the light reflects off the face of the table where the scalloped spots are.

 

 

I treated the wood with Minwax pre-stain wood conditioner, and then stained the table with Minwax Provincial wood finish stain.  I personally think provincial is the best looking major retail stain color available. It increases the contrast in the grain of the wood and highlights knots. You can’t get a finish like that on a new table unless you specify it before hand and are willing to pay several thousand dollars for one this size.

The legs were in decent shape and cleaned up really well. These pics are during the staining process. I experimented with small sections on the bottom of the table and on the legs to find the right balance.

I used Minwax fast drying polyurethane applied with a cut up old t-shirt. I didn’t go too heavy with the polyurethane because I wanted to create some matte areas and some glossy areas in streaks on the table surface following the grain. This gives the appearance of very different pieces of wood side by side. If you just covered it all evenly with many coats of poly it would come out pretty uniform but applying one base coat then running streaks on a few “boards” it looks really cool. Slightly more gloss on some sections and slightly less on others creates contrast which I think makes the table stand out without being too shiny.

For less than two hundred dollars I have a dining room table that will last several lifetimes and that is pretty cool. We put the table in the dining room and the space works really well IMHO. Now we need to decide on either a bench or two high cloth chairs for the ends. The rest of the decorating is up to my better half.