Day 12: Tweaking A Pallet Table

This is not necessarily a created from scratch craft for this day, but I do think I have some helpful tips to offer up for anyone working with furniture they need to change the look of or pallet tables they want to make look better.  I had an over-varnished antique table that had bubbled up and a pallet table that was a little too much on the yellow side in color.

Materials You May Need Depending On What You are Dealing With:
-Krylon OFF to remove varnish, paint, or whatever else you need to strip off
-A sander, if you have an aversion to minor splinters or need to sand between coats of polyurethane
-Polyurethane, although I would like to take this moment to plus Minwax Polyshades
-Minwax stain
-A scraper to remove varnish
-Brushes or whatever you want to apply stain with
-Wood Putty (for my particular project)

I had a friend of a friend build me this table.  I was super excited for it but really preferred a different stain color.  I also decided to fill in the spaces with wood putty.

So I taped some cardboard under the table to hold the wood putty in place (and hopefully will remember to take it off).  I think it dried to fast and it cracked and let me tell you it was absolutely perfect for what I wanted to do. 

Before this, I used Krylon OFF on an old table to remove years upon years of varnish.  It was an antique end table, and it desperately needed some TLC and some liquid nails.  Seriously, add liquid nails to your stash.  All you do is spray on Krylon OFF (preferably outside) and scrape the goo off it creates when it bubbles up the varnish.  And have something to wipe it off on, I used scrap wood, so it doesn't get all over your driveway.

A few days after this I got my pallet table as shown above. I could not have asked for a better size, shape, and weight.  But I really wanted a darker color.  Owning all the stains that I do this was a sinch.  So I put down my shower curtain liner again, and broke out my DARK WALNUT and ENGLISH CHESTNUT Minwax.  Seriously, go buy these.  Easily my two favorite colors and they are phenomenal when they are paired together.  I prefer to mix stains, as I recently discovered, because you can create a lot more visual interest than you can with just one.

ALSO, you need to go invest in some Minwax Polyshades in ANTIQUE WALNUT GLOSS because depending on your project it can save you from needing to use polyurethane and it really deepens whatever Minwax stain you have used.  It is way lighter than the can shows though, so plan accordingly.

Now, I stain with foam brushes and if you are like me there will be some splatter. 

If you stain in shorts, your knee may end up looking like this.

If it does, you can text your best friend and tell her that you are highly allergic to the futon she just gave you and your skin is breaking out.

And you can send her the picture.

And get a big laugh when she thinks that you have a flesh eating virus :).

...Not that I would do that of course...

HAH!

Here are my relatively finished products.  The pallet table still needs a couple coats of polyshades, which will begin tomorrow.  But for all intents and purposes this is darn close to what the finished product will look like.

In real life they look so close to each other in color that it is mindboggling.  I think if I had added a touch here and there of my red mahogany they would have looked even similar, because the antique table has a wide variation of color.

I think with the right stains you can make a scrap wood table blend in with anything in your house.  It doesn't have to look like scraps if you don't want it to.

Also, the next time you are raiding a flea market and you see a piece of furniture with a beautiful shape, but a horrid stain or varnish or paint, think about whether it can undergo a little rehab and come out on the other side as something you love.

I did spend $50 on the table, and maybe someday I will learn the art of power tools and learn to make my own.  I really like the way the putty stained on this table as well, it really is not noticeable and it is very visually intriguing. 

So far in this craft challenge, I wonder what the world would be like if more people could learn to appreciate things that they had lying around the house instead of constantly buying new.  I personally have already started seeing things in such a different way for all of the potential they hold.

Bring it on, Day 13!