Little Entry Way Table DIY Redo

Taking another piece from damaged and sad to vibrant and restored!!

This cute little entryway table was given to me by a previous coworker. During a lunch break one day I told her about my furniture flipping side business and she told me that she had a perfect piece for me to refinish. She told me that she had inherited the table from her mother and that she would love to see the piece restored but knew that she wasn’t going to get around to it. I happily took it off her hands and immediately saw the potential!

Before

As you can see by the photos this table is a perfect size for a small entryway. It has two small drawers with fold out table leaves on each side to extend the width of the table if desired. In addition to being quite dirty from being stored in my carport until I was ready to start the refinishing process, the original hardware appeared to have been spray painted a few times and the veneer finish on the top of the table was damaged and bubbled up in several areas. The entire piece had been painted with a brown paint, that I think was to give the impression of a stained look; in fact when I first saw the table I thought that it was stained but quickly realized that it was painted in this shade of brown.

The Refinishing Plan

I was hoping that after repairing the veneer the table would be able to be stained and the original hardware cleaned up and restored. My back-up plan if the necessary veneer repair left the piece unable to be stained was to paint the table and stain the two drawers for a contrasting look. I thought that a dark green would be the perfect color and contrast really nicely with the dark stain. I had some left over green paint from painting the accent wall in my son’s room (to read all about that room makeover click here) so I planned to use this if my original staining plan fell through.

The Refinishing Process

I got to work by giving the table a good cleaning with my go-to Krud Krutter followed by stripping the brown paint, the legs were particularly tricky to strip but everywhere else the brown paint was removed really easily with CitriStrip.

Moving to Plan B

The veneer on the top had what I’m guessing was water damage and was bubbled up in quite a few places and then chipped in other areas. To repair the chipped areas I used wood filler and JB Epoxy repair to fill in the chips and then I sanded the entire piece. I sanded with 80 grit, 180 grit and 220 grit sand paper over the entire piece. After stripping and sanding the table it became obvious that the repair the veneer needed on the top would be extensive enough that my original plan was not going to work so on I went to Plan B. The drawers as I had originally suspected looked great so I was able to stain these. I went ahead and applied two coats of a Rustoleum gel stain in American Walnut and set them aside.

I then moved on to repairing the bubbled up spots on the top of the table. I had never done this type of veneer repair work before so I referred to Google and You Tube University for a quick how-to!! I ended up using the following technique; I used a razor blade to make a small slit in the center of the bubbled area I then used a small syringe with a curved end (I’ll include a link at the bottom of the post) to put wood glue under the bubbled area on both sides of the slit that I had made. I then placed a damp towel across the damaged spots and ran over the areas with an iron on a very low heat setting. After repeating this process I used clamps to hold down the repaired areas and allowed 24-hours dry/setting time. I’ve included some pictures below of the ironing process!

Priming & Painting

Now that the repair work was complete it was time to work on priming and painting. I applied 1 coat of my favorite furniture primer the Zinsser 1, 2, 3 Bullseye primer on the top and body of the table. After allowing time to dry I sanded with a 400 grit sand paper followed by cleaning with tack cloth, I repeated this between every coat of paint and polyurethane as well. I then applied 3 coats of paint, I used the color “Windsor Haze” by Behr however it’s important to note that I found this color on the “oopsies” rack at Home Depot so the shade that I have is not the exact true Windsor Haze color which seems more blue than the paint I have.

Sealing the Piece

After painting was complete it was time to move on to sealing the entire piece. I used the Varathane polyurethane in matte to seal the entire piece including the drawers and ended up using three coats of this since the paint I used isn’t an enamel paint.

The Finishing Touches

I decided that I wanted to reuse the hardware but as I mentioned at the beginning of the post it had been painted a few times. In order to strip the paint off the hardware I put it into a crock pot, filled the pot with water and baking soda. I followed the ratio of 1/4 cup baking soda to 1 quart of water and then put the crock pot on low for about 8 hours. The paint easily peeled off after this, but this process can be repeated several times until all the paint is removed, you can also use a wire brush to scrape off any last remnants. I then used a jewelry polish kit to shine up the hardware and it was restored to it’s original glory and ready to be re-installed. After restoring the hardware I decided to use some leftover peel and stick wallpaper to line the shelves and the piece was complete. One important thing to note, I have an iron and crock pot that are solely for furniture refinish projects, the crock pot especially should never be used for food after being used for paint removal!! I feel as if this may be common sense but wanted to make note of it nonetheless!

Before & After

Now on to everyone’s favorite part of a furniture refinish project…

A quick reminder of what the entryway table looked like when we started.

And After:

My Final Thoughts & Key Take-Aways:

I absolutely love how this piece turned out, I honestly think this might be my favorite refinishing project to date!!!

You can find good furniture flip projects just about anywhere, I found this piece simply due to sharing my passion for furniture flipping with a coworker over lunch one day!!
Your skills with refinishing will continue to improve with every piece you do. I had never completed veneer repair work before this table and feel like I was able to really master this skill by completing this project!
Don’t feel the need to update absolutely everything about a piece, I honestly think I would have done this table a disservice to not reuse the original hardware, I’m so glad I put in the work to refinish and reuse the original hardware rather than going with something new, I think it maintained the original integrity of the piece!