On the morning of our Ann Arbor move, we decided to sell our dining room table due to lack of room for it in the trailer. Once our offer was accepted for the house we are living in now, we started looking for a new one. We went to a few furniture stores and quickly realized that new was going to be out of the question. Who knew dining room tables and chairs could total over $2,000? Definitely not in the post-grad school budget, or in Austin's words, "Not in life's budget, ever." So, I started scouring Craiglist and saw an ad for this table: I loved the shape of the chairs and thought I could use a DIY project to occupy myself for the additional, unexpected two weeks off before starting my job. I took Austin along to the seller's house so he could handle the "wheeling and dealing." Austin handles this much better than I do. He was able to knock $50 off the asking price and we hauled the table away. My mom and I started by re-doing the chairs and the table legs. She was self-appointed as the project supervisor from this point on. We made our own chalk paint with ingredients we already had in the basement because the pre-made paint is quite pricey! We used the following chalk paint recipe: 1/3 cup plaster of paris 1/3 cup warm water 1 cup flat white paint It took 3 coats of paint to get the chairs from this: To this: After the 3rd coat was completely dry, I used sand paper to lightly distressed each chair. I used cheese cloth to rub Trewax on the chairs to finish them off. Remember those awful chair cushions? That was the next step in the project. I headed to Jo-Ann's with my grandma and my 40% off coupon and I ended up getting all of the fabric for less than $12. The cushions were by fair the easiest part of the project. We just pulled the old staples out, took off the old fabric (only to discover another layer of awful fabric), put on the new, and stapled it down with a dust cover. Result: Next on the to-do list was stripping the top of the table. THIS WAS THE WORST. And I wanted to give up on the project so badly but the project supervisor wouldn't have it. This went from a DIY to a DIWYWF (Do it with your whole family) project. Sadly, I accidentally deleted all of the pictures from this part of the project which included shirtless Steve in his Tiger's pajamas taking over the project and me in hot pink Crocs.
Weeks later, thanks to my family, friends, and husband, we ended up with a pretty awesome dining room table. The search for new curtains and a rug for underneath the table has commenced. We would love for you to come enjoy dinner with us!
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Hi! I'm Haley. Archives
May 2019
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