DIY Dining Room Table

Voila! Here is our new dining room table!

The first part of this post is a bit outdated since it's from Christmas, but it's appropriate to share now since it's finally finished. 

My sweet husband collaborated with some of our great friends to have this pine wood table commissioned. The table seats 8 people comfortably and the carpenter even threw in 2 benches to match. Leading up to the holidays, since I'm in need of nothing, I told J that I'd love to have a large dining room table to fit all of our loved ones around. I knew it wasn't 100% that it would happen and assumed it wasn't going to happen when  I knew it wasn't hidden in our house and J bought me [too many] gifts.

When we arrived at my in-laws' house for dinner it was raining so I ran to the garage ahead of J and he was convinced I'd already seen the surprise and that he'd missed my face. He was wrong. I'm not sure how I missed the huge table, but when he finally called my name and I turned around - there it was! My in-laws' were so great and helped him with the surprise by wrapping the table and benches in red bows. It's amazing how many people came together to make this happen...so lucky.

 We were able to get the table to our house a few days after the holidays and it sat, unfinished, in our dining room. We had to cover it with a huge oil cloth tablecloth to protect it. 

After some camping plans for this past weekend fell through, we decided it was the perfect time to finally finish the table. We went to Home Depot and got all of the necessary items (Varathane Dark Walnut Stain, Semi-gloss Polyurethane, tack rags (you can also use old t-shirts), and plastic drop cloth). Then it was time to apply the stain. We did 2 coats on each of the table and benches (allowing a full hour between coats). We decided to go with Varathane over Minwax since it is water-based and typically more forgiving than Minwax. Also, since it was cold outside we wanted to be able to stain indoors (with the windows open).

Once we were done staining, it was time to apply the polyurethane. 

We decided to do 3 coats (with 2 hours of drying time minimum between each coat) since this furniture will be some of the most used furniture in our house (and will hopefully last forever). We had to sand the furniture in between each coat of polyurethane and wipe down the furniture after each sanding to ensure that no particles remain in the coat of polyurethane.

It took us 1.5 days to finish the full project and tonight will be our first time eating on the fully finished table! 

Now it's time for more dinner parties!

Now I just have to figure our how to get the stain and polyurethane off my hands!