The Refinished French Country Table Top project

This table top had been in use for a couple generations and was completely worn out. Furthermore, because of the heavy use and accumulation of oils, grease, furniture polish and who knows what else, the finish had become soft and gooey.

Sooooo… As a starting point we had to sand the top all the way back to bare wood. In this case we didn’t chemically strip it because we were saving the original hand painted skirt.  Yes it was all heavy sanding and elbow grease. After we sanded it back we wiped it down many times with lacquer thinner to ensure we’d gotten any remaining chemical residue off the wood.  This remaining residue can wreck havoc on a new finish.

 

Building the brown base color was fairly straightforward and we sealed this in with a couple coats of lacquer.  However the slightly blueish/gray haze that was originally on the table proved the most challenging aspect to reproduce.  After experimenting with various methods we finally were able to tint our lacquer such that we achieved the desired affect. After getting the haze just right, we we then covered the entire surface with a few more coats of lacquer.