New/Old Dining Table – The Blackwell Boutique

As promised, I have had lots of projects to finish and unveil, and I’ve been a busy girl! I just finished one of my largest projects on my list- find a new dining table and chairs! We had been using a bar table (I’ve had it since college) and 4 bar chairs, and it has served its purpose. It was pretty- all light stained oak, and it certainly was space friendly (since it was small), but then it became glaringly obvious- this table is TOO small. We really love having company over for dinner, but it only seats 4 people with barely any table space to spread out, and forget about putting a fresh arrangement on the table- there is no room.

Thus begun our search for the perfect table. Keeping in mind that we don’t have $5000 to spend on a fabulous new stylish table and stunning set of chairs, we looked at garage sales, craisglist, etc…and for $50 at the Goodwill, tucked behind some true hideousness, we found this:

It was an antique dining table, but it had been “loved” too hard. At one time, it was beautiful and shiny- but it had become someone’s craft table, covered in glue & glitter, with splatters of bright craft paint across the stained surface, and one of the legs had a chunk of wood missing.

Using wood putty, we reformed the missing corner and sanded it into shape. We sanded away the glue, glitter, and paint; we restained the top in a beautiful walnut, and painted the bottom antique white (Lol, it was a can of “Oops” paint for $2.50). Here is the after :

A few weeks later, we happened upon a set of 6 antique chairs, the “before” is seen in the picture above. They had a tired walnut stain, dry-rotted foam padding, and stained/crusty seat fabric. Still, they had a great shape about them, and we could see they held promise. The price was right, at $85 for all 6!

We wanted the table and chairs to complement each other at the end of the project, so we painted the chairs with the same white with the antiquing finish, while giving a refreshing walnut stain to the back, and the end result very much complements the table:

All of the woodworking and detail is much more visible with the antiquing finish.

We replaced the foam with thicker, newer, denser foam padding, and I picked out a french linen to with which to cover the chairs. (It was on sale- it was an offer I could not refuse, lol!). I chose the dark brown because, well, I’m messy, and for practical purposes, a light color was probably a bad idea. I loved the way the dark brown also complemented the table and added texture!

Restoration Hardware, eat your heart out!

Here is our finished product: a gorgeous new table and chairs!! It’s a little tight where it is now, but we can easily pull it out for company, and finally accommodate friends and family for a proper dinner party/brunch/holiday/birthday/etc!!! It’s so refreshing to have actual space to sit and sprawl out!

I love it! It was well worth the effort, and because we had most of the supplies for the project, it cost us less than $150 for a beautiful new dining table with 6 chairs that is customized to our exact taste, and hopefully it will become priceless as we share many and evening with those we love!