Restaining/painting my kitchen table

Question

I was reading your post on spray painting a table. I LOVE to do little crafty projects but I am not a huge crafty person by any means but I am determined to refinish my kitchen table instead of buying a new one! My question is, my table has a polyurethane finish. Do I need to strip it first or just sand it? Should I spray paint or stain? HELP! Thank you and I am looking forward to hearing from you!

KMS Woodworks · Answer

You first need to figure out if you table top is solid wood or veneer. It is is veneer you need to take extra steps to ensure you do not ruin it. With a veneer top you would need to chemically strip away the old finish and then reapply a new top coat. In most of these cases you can not 'lighten' the color as this requires sanding. With a solid wood top you can sand or strip, the trick here is to not change the edge profile by aggressive sanding there. With 30 plus years of custom furniture building / refinishing, I prefer the look of wood and not paint. This table was a nasty mess with white water stains and mineral deposits ( she had some plants on it) In order to preserve some of the 'character dings' I did a strip and refinish. http://www.hometalk.com/diy/repair/furniture/betsy-mahogany-534229

Mary Insana · Answer

I refinished a dining room table a few years ago with fabulous results. Modge Podge !
 
It's not something that will be done in one day(I usually enjoy instand gradification).
By a roll of either a printed wraping paper or a roll of brown paper similar to grocery store bags. Now the fun part. Tear the paper in uneven pieces about the side of your hand or larger. I like larger and you can over lap pieces too. Get a bottle of white glue and dilute it a little with water until it's easily painted in small sections on to your table.. Lay your piece of paper on top and smooth it out so there are no bubbles in the paper. Continue doing this until the whole table is covered. Don't forget the table leave if you have one. When the whole table is done paint a thing layer of the diluted white glue over the paper. 
After everything was dry I started painting layers of glossy polyurethene over the whole table. It dries pretty quick so you can usually put 2 or 3 coats a day if you start early in the day. I put 5 coats of poly and the table screamed look at how cool I am ! !

You can use a semi gloss or satin poly if you don't like the high gloss finish.. I used poly since you can wipe it down and use your table on a daily basis without worrying that you will ruin your piece of art !

I also did a friends table doing a different technique. First layer I ragged on metallic gold paint, next layer an antique gold then final paint layer of copper here and there for depth. Followed up with the poly. On her table I did the legs too since she wanted a whole new look. For the paint I used the little bottles of acrilic paint .

Jim Jakes · Answer

Spray painting large surfaces with spray cans usually leaves the finish uneven and unappealing. What ever you do follow the advice KMS gives in stripping it. If it is wood you can stain it after a good sand/stripping. On tables I have used paint rollers to apply my finish with good results.

KMS Woodworks · Answer

If you do spray start in the foreground and work your way back...this will limit the 'overspray'

my first choice for refinishing is to top coat with minwax's wiping poly in satin.

Restaining/painting my kitchen table

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Restaining/painting my kitchen table

Betsy Mahogany

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