"Blanche" - Round Table Flip
Say H O L A to Blanche-- our elegant little side/breakfast table that we just finished! So you may be asking why we're referring to this table as "Blanche" and honestly... We just find it entertaining to give our furniture flips old people names. This one was named Blanche because we thought this piece deserved a little more sophisticated name.
Once it was all done, we decided to style it a couple of different ways. Since this table was a little smaller than a breakfast table, it gave us a couple of different options-- which we loved!
First we styled it as a small dining or breakfast table.
It's really too small for four chairs, so we decided to take some wooden chairs and just cover them with slipcovers.
Then we styled it as a side table/desk!
Here is the process for how exactly we refinished this piece.
We found this table for free on FB marketplace and really fell in love with the design of the table. However, when you get something for free on FB marketplace expect two things: (1) picking it up to be a little sketchy and (2) for the previous owners to have no reason to clean it. That being said, Mal and I had to carry this thing down some rickety spiral stairs (P.S. it's heavy) and then figure out how to get it into the car and on top of that, the thing was GROSS. It was sticky and dirty and not fun to touch. Needless to say we scrubbed down with some hand sanitizer as soon as we got in the car!!
Here is what she looked like when we started:
Next came the hard work... cleaning and dressing it up! We started by sanding down the top. Link to each of our sanders can be found here. Once we got it sanded, we decided we definitely wanted to strip the legs down to the wood underneath rather than repainting it. Here is the best way we have found to strip paint (but warning it's messy so use a drop cloth, gloves, and a mask):
Apply the stripper to one section at a time
Wrap with saran wrap
Leave for at least an hour, up to 24 hours
Use a bristle head that attaches to your drill (see here)
Get a small bucket and add a little bit of mineral spirits
Dunk the bristle head into the mineral spirits
Use the drill and bristle head to begin removing the paint (warning: paint will fly everywhere and make sure not to go to fast otherwise mineral spirits will fly off the bristle head and it could get the mineral spirits on your skin)
Use a sander and 100 grit sandpaper to remove any excess loosened paint
Use a stripping paint to wipe down the piece to remove any leftover
Repeat process until all of the paint is removed
This what Blanche looked like during the stripping process. You can see that some pieces have been stripped and some haven't.
Once it was completely stripped, we went over it again with a 100 grit sandpaper to clean it up and open up the wood for the stain. Then we wiped the piece completely down with a rag and tack cloth to remove all the dust/sand. This is what she looked like at that point:
Next, we used Minwax White Wash Pickling to take some of the yellow out of the wood and give it a nice finished look. To apply, we painted on with a paint brush and left for 30-60 seconds and then we would wipe off the excess with a paper towel. Be sure to test a little bit of this stain on your piece before you start. Every wood is different and to get the best result with the White Wash Pickling, you do not want to allow the stain to dry. So test and see how long you should leave before wiping. We worked in sections starting with the top and then each leg at a time to prevent the stain from drying before wiping.
Lastly, we applied a coat of the Minwax Paste Finishing Wax for a nice matte finish. We chose this over a polyurethane because it still repels the water without changing the color of the finish over time. Note that we also had to replace some of the brackets underneath since they were rusty and old, but we did not include that in this post.
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