Our New Old Kitchen Table

Allow me to introduce you to the biggest annoyance in my house, my dining room table.  While it's in good shape and does it's job, it has a very annoying feature.  Cracks.  Lots of cracks for crumbs and peanut butter and play dough and milk to settle into.  After every meal and craft and activity, I have to not only wipe down the table, but painstakingly clean out the many cracks of all the leftover debris.  I realize this is a very minimal problem, especially given the current global pandemic.  

But it was annoying enough for me to repeatedly complain about it to Adam.  So we started brainstorming some solutions.  Eventually we would love to exchange our pub-height dining room table with a standard-height round table.  The pub height just isn't ideal for our older family members or kids, so we think a standard-height table is the way to go.  It'd also be nice for the future round table to have multiple leaves so we could seat bigger groups of people for things like Thanksgiving and birthday parties.  (Fingers crossed we can safely gather by next Thanksgiving!)  Recently, Adam and I have tried to shop secondhand before buying something new.  We looked at a few tables on Facebook Marketplace that were either in need of refinishing or completely refinished.  Although we liked a few, we decided now just wasn't the right time to be going into strangers' houses to look at furniture.    

So then we turned our attention to the small pub table we have in our eat-in kitchen area.  It's really tiny and just doesn't comfortably fit four people.  But we have the space in the area for a larger table.  As luck would have it, there was a table in our basement that was from Adam's childhood home.  It was still sturdy, but looked a bit dated, despite caning being back in style.  But it was standard-height, the perfect size for the space and even had rounded corners as an added safety feature!  

After taping out the table size in our eat-in kitchen area, we were convinced it would be the perfect fit.  Now we just had to update it.  

Adam first tried sanding down the top to see if it could be re-stained.  He figured out it was just a wood laminate top over particle board, so staining wasn't an option.  Then we moved onto the idea of painting it.  Adam had some milk paint (General Finishes Milk Paint in Driftwood) in the basement that would cover up the laminate/particle board top.  The color was very close to the color of our kitchen cabinets so we felt it would tie in nicely with the overall aesthetic of our kitchen.

So Adam put on four coats of the milk paint, followed by four coats of a water-based topcoat in a satin finish.  This process resulted in a very even, smooth finish.  He also added some bracing to the bottom of the table to make sure it was nice and sturdy in case Archer or Lyla have any table dancing in their futures.  Adam decided to paint the bottom of the table (he only did one coat of milk paint) since the bottom of the table is visible from below in the family room.        

Once the table was painted, then we had to figure out what to do about the base of the table.  The original base was a bit bulky and would be difficult to paint given the caning.  We've always liked the look of hairpin legs and thought they would be the perfect way to update this old table.  After doing some research, Adam settled on an Ohio-based company so we could support a small business here in the United States.  We picked out some black powder-coated legs with the perfect little brass detail on the foot.  

The final piece of the puzzle was figuring out what to do for seating around the table.  We couldn't reuse the stools because they were pub-height, so we needed some standard-height chairs.  If it weren't for the pandemic, we'd definitely taken the secondhand route and picked something from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.  But we ended up going with these.

All the painting and curing and assembling was wrapped up just in time to enjoy our dinner on New Year's Eve around our new old table.  I'm in love with how it all came together!  I'm glad we were able to reuse an old table, but still update it to make it fit our style.  The gray works so well with the kitchen cabinets.  Our previous table was very similar in color to our wood floors, so it just sort of blended in.  But now our new table stands out in the best way!  

The legs are minimal and modern and tie into the other hits of black we have going on in our kitchen, like the appliances and cabinet hardware.  The black chairs also tie in nicely, while also being comfortable and somehow fit Adam, myself and the kids remarkably well despite our varying heights.  I might see if I can find some chair cushions secondhand in the future.  While the chairs are perfectly comfortable for a meal, a game of Liverpool (anyone else's family play this card game?) would be much more comfortable with a little extra padding.  

And I further broke my attempts at shopping secondhand to buy some silicone place mats for Archer and Lyla (alphabet & rainbows) hoping they will help protect the tabletop longer.  Both Adam and I realize scratches and dings are bound to happen, but thought the place mats would help.     

Adam produced another win!  Our nightly family dinners (& lunches thanks to Adam working from home) will be just a little bit more special gathered around this new old table.  

Want to guess the part I love most of all?  There are no cracks! :)