this dining table was propped up in the back of my local Salvation Army Thrift Shop a few
months ago and I Knew by the 30 price tag on it that they did not know what they had
under all of this white latex paint [Music] hello Katie here from salvaged by K Scott
with another Furniture makeover I can tell by these massive scrolled feet and the overall
thick chunky style of this that it's an American empire style table that along with the Hand
Forged nails and hand cut screw heads means that it's from the mid-1800s and my guess
is that this 48-6 marked on the underside means that this table was made in June 1848.
I can also see from under there that the table top at least is tiger oak it would have originally
had a leaf so that it could be extended to fit more guests and I imagine that that has
been missing for some time but the crank mechanism on the bottom to open and close this table
is really cool I can see through the paint that this table has been through some things
but I don't really know what I'm gonna find underneath I'm hopeful that I'll uncover over
some good wood to refinish but if not it might just need to get a newer cleaner paint job
the top of the table attaches to the base with these lag bolts but I'm going to just
tighten my drilled Chuck over these and pop it into reverse to remove them for now just
so that I can lay this flat while I'm working on it [Music] I decided that the quickest
way to get through this white paint was to use my carbide scraper and after the first
few swipes I could see that there were a few more layers a kind of taupey gray and then
a warm white layer before the oak underneath I wasn't sure though if this table top was
solid or a thin veneer of quarters on Oak I knew from a missing Chunk on the apron of
the table that there was veneer there and the wood grain around the edge was going in
the opposite direction to the top so that tells me that that's a veneer as well so I
was being as careful and cautious as I could be so that if this top surface is also a veneer
I'm not going to be damaging it foreign
[Music]
off of The Edge banding it was clear that this veneer was beyond repair it looked like
it had already been patched a few times large sections of it were bubbled up and it was
full of stones like it had been rolled across the ground so knowing that I wasn't going
to be able to salvage that meant that I didn't need to be so nice about getting the paint
off of here while I pondered how I was going to go about getting the veneer off of the
apron and that table Edge I went ahead and just started sanding the rest of the paint
and stain off of the top with a 120 grit abrasive [Music] foreign
[Music] I was very pleasantly surprised that this top was in such good condition with just
really a few minor dents and scratches I went ahead and sanded most of the paint off of
The Edge and then I could clearly see that the top was totally solid which means that
I was safe to sand and scrape as much as I needed to but in an effort to avoid the task
of peeling the veneer off of the rest I decided just to move over to the base for a bit I
used the same scraper and sandpaper to work away at that paint too again I was very pleasantly
surprised to see that this pedestal column had the same quarter sun oak on it but through
some big cracks down it I could tell that this was definitely a veneer and it was thin
so I needed to be extra cautious to not sand or scrape through that by accident [Music]
thank you [Music] these feet however just like the top are solid oak so I just switched
up between my scraper and some coarser 80 grit sandpaper to get through the paint on
here I should also mention that I did test this table for lead before I started working
on it I knew that the top layer of paint was a newer latex just from the plasticky feel
of it but I wasn't sure about the layers underneath that could possibly contain some lead I personally
don't work on pieces that contain lead in their paint or stain just because I don't
want to put myself or my family at risk by creating lead dust in our environment and
I definitely don't want to pass any lead contamination onto anyone else's family but this piece was
totally lead free before I did any more sanding I decided to break out my little dental picks
here and pluck out as much of the paint from the Grain and any small dents as I could this
table is a hundred and 175 years old though and it's had a few makeovers already so I'm
not going for Perfection here it's going to have some character and that is totally okay
since I couldn't avoid it anymore I flipped the top over and started working on the veneer
removal I sanded away the paint and found a ton of old patches and filler that really
solidified my decision to just completely remove all of this veneer from the apron and
the edge so I grabbed my little painters tool here and peeled up everything that was already
loose and then I just kind of used it like a chisel with my hammer to get all of the
rest off
foreign
I thought about finding some new veneer to put on here but after looking online I ended
up deciding that the expense of it probably wasn't necessary the wood under the apron
veneer is maple I think and since you can't really see that when you're standing or sitting
at the table I'm pretty sure that once I get everything Stained it's not going to be noticeable
once I had all of that veneer removed I just kept picking and scraping and sanding all
the little details until I had all of that paint removed well I had the base upside down
though I did notice that there was a massive crack running all the way between two of the
feet and if I didn't address this this half of the base would eventually just snap right
off I grabbed some half inch dowels out of my wood collection and borrowed a half inch
drill bit from my husband to stabilize this problem I just drilled some holes on an angle
right through where that crack was I let gravity take some wood glue down through all of the
big gaps and then glue the dowel pieces into the holes that I had drilled [Music]
foreign [Music]
foreign
[Music]
I originally had two dowels kind of on each end and I clamped it all up to hold it in
place while the glue set but after I got the clamps on there and looked at it a little
more I decided to add a few more dowel pieces coming from the other direction just for some
extra insurance foreign [Music] I left that rig to set up overnight and then the next
morning when I came back out to work I used my Dremel multi-tool with a flush cut blade
to trim off all of the excess dowel pieces [Music]
foreign [Music]
[Music] with that repaired I was ready to move on to filling the cracks in the pedestal
with some oat colored wood filler [Music]
while that dried I started the process of my finished sanding since I done my initial
paint removal sand with 80 grit on a few spots and 120 on the rest I needed to sand those
80 grit spots with the finer 120 to start smoothing things out and I did a bit more
of a thorough sand of the 120 grit on the table top as well [Music] I wanted to see
if I could fix these two deeper scratches a bit more than my sander was getting done
by steaming them sometimes with scratches and dents where the wood has been compressed
you can actually rehydrate the wood fibers and plump them back up to resolve that damage
with steam so I put a wet cloth over the scratches and got my iron as hot as I could and then
just tried to steam those scratches but I don't think it really worked well on these
it did make a slight Improvement but not really what I was looking for again I had to remind
myself this table is 175 years old it's gonna have some flaws I had a few other little spots
on here that I wanted to fill in before I did my last sand so I did that and then I
went back over to the base the same procedure here 120 grit to sort of smooth everything
and get all of the wood to a consistent color and then I moved up to a 180 grit for my final
smoothing sand [Music] foreign
[Music] once I was happy with everything I wiped down the table with some plain old water
just to get an idea for how it would stain and try and highlight any swirlies that might
need correcting from my sanders they can be really hard to spot on the dusty lighter wood
color so this really helps bring those out foreign
everything looked good so I grabbed a tack cloth to pick up any dust that might be hanging
on here and then I got out my pre-stained wood conditioner this is a clear kind of light
sealant that is just going to close up the surface of the wood a bit so that when I apply
my penetrating wood stain it absorbs nice and evenly across all of the wood this tiger
oak or quarter-sawn Oak just has a streaky blotchy look by Nature so I'm not a hundred
percent sure that this wood conditioner step is necessary on here but I'm just going to
do it anyways I gave it a good stir and then used a clean t-shirt rag to rub it onto all
of the surfaces I like to just get it on there and then I go back and smooth it out in the
same direction as the wood grain and after about five minutes I grabbed another clean
Rag and just wiped up any excess that hadn't absorbed after the wood conditioner had had
about 30 minutes to dry I started getting getting ready to stain I think this red toned
English chestnut color is going to be pretty comparable to the original warm wood finish
that this table would have had again with another lint-free rag I'm just gonna wipe
this over each surface in the direction of the Grain and then I like to just roll over
my rag to pick up any excess as I go [Music]
you can see a just how splotchy this apron piece gets as the stain absorbs into the wood
which confirms my suspicions that this is maple Maple is just a wood that's notorious
for not staining nicely but it is what it is and I'm not going to stress about it [Music]
thank you [Music]
all right I ended up doing two coats of stain to get the richness and depth of color that
I was looking for and then I grabbed some paint just a tiny bit to camouflage the original
bits of filler that are in some of the larger flaws on these chunky big feet all of this
needs to dry really thoroughly so I left this overnight again and then I was ready to seal
everything up this wipe on poly is what I prefer for big wood surfaces like this I find
it to be really effective but more importantly it's really easy to use I grabbed another
fresh Rag and after shaking up this can of poly I just poured some out and used the rag
to work it into the surface on my first coat of this stuff I like to really rub it down
into the wood grain and then I just give it a final wipe you guessed it in the direction
of the wood grain this stuff needs three to four hours of dry time in between coats and
since it's a thinned out version of a regular polyurethane I find it needs three to four
coats for decent protection so after my first two coats had dried I rubbed it down with
some 600 grit which is a super fine sandpaper just to knock back any little bits of dust
that had landed in it while it was wet or any wood fibers that had popped up and then
I put on another two coats this is an oil-based poly so it will Amber or yellow slightly over
time that means it's great for a traditional stained finish like this because it will just
accentuate that warm wood grain with time but it is not good for painted finishes
[Music] foreign had some casters on it and I just happened to have a set of four that
fit perfectly in these spots I clicked those in place and just had to put the table back
together
[Music] I screwed the lag bolts back into the table top and then used some new washers
and lock nuts to hold everything in place
[Music] no no no no no
and here is the finished 175 year old American Empire tiger oak table foreign
[Music]
[Music] foreign
[Music] thank you so much for watching today if you liked this makeover make sure to check
out some more like it here and I will catch you all next time