Thrifty Table Refinish

I have a dining table that was given to me as a hand-me-down. It is a nice piece, but had 15+ years of heavy duty use by the previous owner which means it definitely could use a face lift. The previous finish was so worn down that the table top would soak in any stain immediately. This made me especially paranoid when my kids ate anything with colored frosting or any food color for that matter and especially any and all crafty things like watercolor paints and markers were the worst. It needed a new protective finish and I wasn't going to do that without touching up the damage that had already been done.  With money being tight and my time for a project minimal, I needed something cheap and easy that still looked good.  It was a rather experimental effort, but it is finished and I am very pleased. In total I spent approximately $25 as well as around 25 hours to refinish the entire table and 6 chairs.  The chairs were a much bigger project than I anticipated, but the end result is totally worth it!

Here's the secret to such an affordable yet fabulous refinish:

I wanted to use chalk paint because I heard it had such great coverage and didn't need a lot of prep work. With two little munchkins around, I figured the less prep work the better.  I know Annie Sloan chalk paint is very popular and I haven't used any yet so I cannot compare, but it was a lot more than I wanted to spend and seemed more of a hassle to get it. Instead I headed over to my local Michael's just 5 minutes down the road, brought my handy 40% off coupon with me, and found this-

At only $12.99 a bottle, plus an additional 40% this was definitely something I could do! I started by disassembling the table and cleaning it really well. It wasn't long before I started painting. I used a regular chip brush, also from Michael's, for just $0.99. The paint is definitely thick and has excellent coverage so I mixed with water in the ratio 2 parts paint to 1 part water. This ratio varied by coat, but I just went with how thick I needed the paint initially for coverage or how thin I wanted to help it go on more smoothly for later coats. Pour your paint in a plastic cup so it is easy to add more water or add more paint as needed. Regardless of how smooth I tried to go, there were still brush strokes, which is inevitable whenever there is a brush involved, but I still wanted to eliminate them as much as possible. I did 3 coats on the table top to be extra thorough, and only needed 2 coats for everything else. So I bought a sanding block from Home Depot for $3 to very lightly brush over the top coat to smooth things out. 

Once everything was covered in the paint, it was time for the wax. I did worry about the durability of the table top so I gave just the top of the table a 2 coat polyurethane finish from a tiny can I had on hand. It did not effect the overall finish at all- the top looks the same as the rest, and I don't know that is was entirely necessary either; I just wanted to take extra precautions to protect my table. 

For the main finish I bought 2 types of wax from Michael's. From the same line as the ArtMinds chalk paint I bought a large 16 oz. bottle of clear wax and a small 8 oz. bottle of the antique wax. I then used an old rag to generously rub clear wax over the entire piece. You just have to be careful that the wax does not clump so that it ruins the nice smooth finish, but as long as there are no drips or large blobs, this step is very simple. It goes on easily and pretty quickly and it really helps to give a polished look. Once again, I did a double coat of wax just to add some extra protection to everything.

The final step was the antique wax. I don't like the strong distressed look, but I did want a little contrast to the plain white table and chairs. I did not do any sanding, I simply added a little bit of a "smokiness" with the antique wax. It can be very dark and add a very stark contrast, but I was looking for subtle, so I mixed about half and half antique wax with clear wax and diluted it with a touch of water so that it would rub on in a thinner amount. I then worked, section by section, rubbing this wax on with a rag and then continuously rubbing over it with a dry rug until I liked the amount of contrast. Sometimes I ended up adding more wax, other times I had to rub vigorously to lighten the contrast of the antiquing. 

The best thing about finding everything at Michael's is the constant 40% off one regular price item coupon, or even better, the occasional 50% off a regular price item. I took advantage of this and made several trips to Michael's throughout my project so that I could use a coupon on every bottle I needed.  I was even lucky and had a 50% off coupon become available during my project which I could use to purchase both bottles of wax I needed.  In the end, the grand total of this project was:
2 -16 oz. bottles of chalk paint (@ $12.99 each + 40% off = 7.79 each, so $15.58 for both)
1 -16 oz. bottle of clear wax (@ $12.99 + 50% off = $7.79)
1 -8 oz. bottle of antique wax (@ $6.99 + 50% off = $3.50)
a chip brush (@ $0.99)
and a sanding block. (@ $3.49)
means I spent $27.86 for what looks like a brand new dining table!