Jon Bon’s Money

             I spent last weekend refinishing a coffee table that I had gotten free from a co-worker (insert shout out to Kerry here). I had just spent a grand on a decent sectional and was not thrilled about spending several hundred more on a coffee table. I asked around at work and someone had one that they were willing to give me for free.

            I brought it home on a Friday and set up my laptop on it and ate a sandwich. It was an immediate improvement from eating off of one of my dining room chairs. (As you can probably tell by that last statement, I am not married.) On seeing it I starting thinking about refinishing the table itself. I had never done it before and figured it would be a good project to try my hand at.

            So I bought a little medium grade sandpaper and sanded the finish off a corner to see what the wood looked like. It’s a solid wood table, and I figured sanding it would be a lot more fun then stripping it. I mentioned this to Elie and she let me know that I was getting power tools for my birthday (badass!) and could give me the power sander early.

            So now we are cooking. I spent about $25 at the hardware store on extra sandpaper, cheesecloth, finishing stain, brushes, and steel wool.

            I busted out the power sander and went to work grinding down the old beat up stain and varnish. It was fun work and it went pretty quickly on the flat surfaces at least. On the round table legs I probably spend more time on 1/10 the surface area then the whole table top. But I finished them as well with the help of Elie.

            I was able to put two coats of stain on the table top and one on the legs and underside because I am lazy. I gave it about a day to all dry, took it home and put it together.

            I think that it looks really good for my 1^st attempt at finishing a piece of furniture, and it was free to boot! Not  a bad way at all to spend two Saturdays while listening to the Reds lose on the radio (they suck!)

The finished product with my extensive remote collection

            This was a project that took me longer then I anticipated, was decently inexpensive, and lots of fun. I think I will hit up the garage sales this summer to see if I can find end tables that I could refinish and stain to match my sweet coffee table.

            I guess the moral of the story is that new wood furniture is a bust. You can easily find an old beat up table at a garage sale, thrift store, or just by asking around like I did. Finishing it is relatively easy even for a novice, and requires a few tools, and about $30 bucks. I think the cost would go way down for the second piece of furniture because I already have most of the supplies. It has been a pleasant surprise to see how it turned out, and the pride that I took in working on it.