From Meh to Muah!

When we bought the house, we bought new "grown up" living room furniture - it included a sofa, love seat, 2 chairs, coffee table, and 2 side tables.  Sounds like it would be great doesn't it?  (It is really)

Notice the space between the sofa and love seat in the very far back corner?  There is a tiny side table located in that space (the space is like 4' x4') - this drove me completely nuts since the day that the furniture arrived.  I know, you think the trained designer in me would have planned better, but apparently I overlooked something.  So I started searching for a VERY large side table - did you know that those are REALLY hard to find?  It is like not everyone on earth has this same issue of 4' of wasted space between their furniture pieces...  odd huh?

So I looked, and looked, and looked, and came up with exactly - diddly squat.  Then, one day, out of the blue, I am perusing the internet (facebooking), and a post comes up with a 42" x 42" table on it.  So I immediately contact the person, go and look at the table, and bring it home (after some fanangling to get it into the car).

         Picture a fairly beat up table made of solid, sturdy wood, with scratches, crayon marks, and other stains on it - kind of a new teak color appearance to it.

(I spent like 30 minutes looking back through the neighborhood facebook posts trying to find the post which had an original picture of this table that I purchased off a neighbor, suffice it to say that either I can't remember how long it has been since I bought the table, or the post was removed since the table sold.  Who knows.)

After spending a LOT of time sanding, filling cracks, and sanding again - the table looked like this:

And again I am wishing I could find the original post because it looks so much better here than it did when I picked it up.

During the sanding process, I was in the driveway - mostly weekend mornings, and I got comments from 2 flanking neighbors that I was making them "look bad" with my over ambitiousness to refinish a table in my spare time.  I know, I am too ambitious, sorry that your husbands were witness to my crazy side!!  Mine pretty much thought I was crazy until I was done with the project, but now he understands.  (Well, he probably still thinks I am crazy, just not for this reason anymore).

Anyway, one coat of stain, and the table began to take on the life that I knew was hidden deep in there somewhere.

Addition of a second (darker stain) sponged on in areas to make it look more like the pieces we already had, and 2 coats of polyurethane (3 on top), and the table was done.

Finished product in its space.  And it feels so much better.

Probably need to cut 2" off the legs, it is a little tall, but hey, it is there, it fills the space, and the kids are no longer running around behind the sofas unplugging things!!!  And my living room is back to being my happy space instead of my "man I wish I had a table that fit" space.