table it

Inside my mind, I am mired in controversy and drama and intrigue. I have like 3 totally separate things that my brain is freaking out about. So here, on my personal blog where I mostly tell jokes, I will keep it light. For today, anyways.

So I know you are all dying to see my renovated kitchen table. See ya later, males! Or hang around for tales of mild female incompetence, you know, for conversational material.

I started, 3 yrs ago, when I bought this table on Craiglist. It had these flowers painted on it, which I hated, but mostly I was busy cleaning bacterial concentrations off the walls (hey, I'm still doing that! What the heck) so it took me 2 years to find a piece of sandpaper and sand those cheery flowers off, leaving naked little patches on the edge of the table.

No matter, I thought (last year) I'll sand the whole thing lightly and then paint it black. (get that devil music out yer head) So I did, kinda. I painted the leaf black and then I took a little break for a year, during which time certain parties in my marriage expressed strong and frequent disapproval of the "table plan".

So that party went on the road recently, and I decided to finish the table, because I only have 4 kids and I don't have much to do. First, I took said kids to Lowe's, where they both delighted and disgusted the elderly public. I bought spray lacquer, because, hey! 1 step. Ehhhhh....

I sprayed the table top outside and the seats of the chairs. My goal was black top, black seats, white legs, and I accomplished that, eventually.

After 3 cans of spray lacquer, it still looked super stripy, so I used a little bit of leftover black paint from long ago. But it was old and thick and it started making all these pits all over the table, and I was out of money... so I dragged a paintbrush down the surface, and that texture fixed the pits. I'm like friggin Martha Stewart up in here, if Martha Stewart let her kids eat Ramen Noodles while sitting on the floor for 3 days.

New white, old white

I also re-whited all the white parts. Then I started reassembling everything, and progress ground to a screeching halt. I'll tell you what I DID NOT want to happen. The MOG walks in the door from his trip and I am lying on the couch in a swoon, and he has to swoop in and put the chairs back together. Not so much. For one thing, because like I said, I am the Furniture Assembly Spouse and b) this guy doesn't need more reasons to question my interior decorating prowess.

Lucky for me my sister in law had some kind of magic touch and was able to shove the chair rungs back in, with maneuvers that I still don't understand. It's a little rough, you can still see the stripes a little and the whole thing needs some kind of shiny coat that makes it more washable. But it's a big improvement. Even the other parties in my house like it. Kind of.