Let's Bring These Tables Back to Life!

Here is one of them! They were both painted black. Luckily they were painted without any prep work. Meaning they weren't sanded down, primed before they got latex paint applied to them. That was my luck because most of the paint just peeled right off.

When I work on pieces I try to take them apart as much as possible. If it has drawers I take them all out, address any structural issues it may have clean it inside. If It has doors I take them off. If it has legs that come off, I take them off. I find it easier to sand, paint and clear coat separately. Anyway this was a two tiered side table. The legs were not coming off but I found some screws on the bottom which meant the top half can come off. So went ahead and took that off and started sanding. With my orbital sander I used 120,220 and 320 sandpaper grit

Here is the other table! This one had more paint on it. Seemed like someone at least scuff sanded it before applying the paint. Either way after sanding it all came off. As you might notice it has some missing veneer on the side. We'll address it later.

So I was going to restore these tables and didn't want to use any wood fillers, so I decided to try applying veneer for the first time. I purchased some walnut veneer on Amazon. These stripes come with glue on the back. All you have to do is apply heat, the glue melts and sticks to the surface. I'm sure there is a specific tool that does this but all I had is an iron. So that's what I used. Lined up the veneer ( I needed two rows) and "ironed it on"

First one in the works! Once they were both sanded down and repaired. I only applied wood conditioner and a polycrilyc clear coat. These tables had amazing grain already and didn't need anything else. Once that was done I assembled them and it was picture time!

Look how beautiful they turned out!

If you like this transformation and would like to follow in real time. Follow me on Instagram @andreapalmai