Good Tuesday morning! Even though I am home with a new baby, I’ve got a couple of posts for you this week that I wrote last week so I’d have something to share. I will surely pop in soon in real time as well. 🙂 Today I have a fun furniture makeover to share with you of an antique oak library table that I refinished and painted into more of a rustic farmhouse dining table. Coming up in May I have some big changes coming to my Sweet Clover space (I will be announcing those changes soon as well, but I am pretty darn excited about it!) and this table is part of the design aesthetic for May. This table was worn and well-loved over the years by others as well as by us; we had used it on our covered porch the last four years or so. It’s been an awesome table, but it really wasn’t meant to be outside, so I decided to purchase a used patio table and refinish this one to sell. Once I refinished it though, I kinda wanted to keep it; but you just can’t keep them all without landing yourself a spot on hoarders. (This post contains affiliate links).
To give you a refresher of what it looked like on my porch, here’s a reminder from last summer. You can see the finish on it was worn, and this was even after I refinished the top again.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it to give it a bit of a farmhouse dining feel. First, I sanded the entire piece with my orbital sander. As you can see, the drawer had a little crack on it but I loved the charm of it. It’s still solid and sturdy and the crack is just superficial so I left it as is.
I wanted this piece to have a layered look with green coming through white, and I wanted the top to maintain its rustic look but to be more useable. After I wiped off all of the dust from sanding, I gave it a coat of General Finishes Emerald as the base. It’s a bright and bold green, but I needed something like that to really pop once the white was over it. Here you can see the Emerald on the table base.
Once the emerald paint was dry, I gave it two coats of General Finishes Snow White which is a nice pure white and one of my favorite whites to use on furniture…. not too cold and not too warm. After the Snow White dried, I used my orbital sander to hit the edges and distress it so that the green showed through. I then cleaned off the dust and applied Black Bison clear wax to the base with a clean rag. 
The last step was to refinish the top, which as I mentioned was well worn with some stubborn stains. With the look I was going for with this table, that didn’t bother me, but I wanted to preserve the look of it. I saved this step for last because I didn’t want any of the dust from my distressing of the base to wind up stuck in any finish on the wood top. I cleaned the top with a damp rag and allowed it to dry. I wanted a hard quick finish, so I used Minwax polycrylic in clear matte and applied it with a purdy brush. I acted quickly in long swift strokes following the grain of the wood as it was a dry and sunny day and sure to make the finish dry quickly. I didn’t want any brush strokes left behind. After allowing it to dry, I used fine steel wool to “sand” following the wood grain again, and applied another coat, repeating this process once more after that. The wood just looks refreshed and more alive now and will last for years to come.
Overall, I am really happy with this table and excited to set it up in the space. For the moment, I set it up in my driveway with my own chairs.
The green showing through is subtle, but just gives it a little touch of fun.
This table will be available at Sweet Clover’s Mother’s Day weekend sale, Friday May 11-Sunday May 13th!
If you’re looking for any of the products used to achieve this look, I’ve gathered them all here for you.
Happy painting, my friends!
