Wide Farmhouse Table

When my family first moved to Clearfield, Utah, in 2003, I was lonely and needing a friend.  Thankfully, I found one in a neighbor and fellow church member (Stacy) who lived just down the street, and we have enjoyed a steady friendship ever since, despite the fact that they moved away from Utah years before we did.  Our move to Washington, however, brought us within 3 1/2 hours of each other, and we have found many excuses to burn up the road between Portland and Seattle since then!

Back in 2011, I refinished a table for Stacy’s family, seen here.  Shortly thereafter, though, they added a fifth child to the family—and there was no room for him to have a seat at the table!  In addition, a small antique table didn’t really provide enough room for both plates AND food, so it was time for a change.

Enter the “wide” farmhouse table.  The space for a table was limited in length, but there was actually a fair amount of width to work with so Stacy had the brilliant idea of making a table that could accommodate two chairs on each end.

The table is 50” wide by 72” long.  The top is made out of various board widths, and I used my table saw to rip 1/2” off each side to get rid of the rounded edges that stock lumber has.  It makes for a nice smooth table top—but I lost the look of the random width boards because it turned out so smooth!

I distressed the table with chain, hammer, needle-nose pliers, screwdriver, and a Dremel tool.  It was stained and sanded down about five times (no kidding) because I had a hard time finding a color I liked—that I thought she would also like!  In the end, it’s basically Rustoleum American Walnut, sanded back, followed by Rustoluem Wheat (we’ll ignore the layers of black, willow, weathered gray, and paint).  It’s finished with Minwax Hand-Rubbed Polyurethane and Dark Paste Wax.

I bought a set of four pressed-back chairs off of Craigslist.  I liked them because they were in a dark stain to begin with, rather than a medium oak.  I painted them with  SW Creamy.  As I was painting the chairs one afternoon, I kept thinking to myself, “I HATE painting chairs!  This is why I don’t paint chairs!!”

But the next day, when I was distressing them and glazing them, I thought, “These are so pretty!  I should refinish more chairs!!”

It’s confusing to be me!

I built the benches based on the plans in Ana White’s Handbuilt Home book (adjusted for size).  The picture on the left shows what they looked like when Stacy came to see the table…and the picture on the right is what they looked like when she left with them!

I had first stained the benches with Rustoleum American Walnut, and then I used MMS Milk Paint in Tricyle over top.  I really, really didn’t like the way the color turned out.  Even with dark wax on top, it was a bright tomato-y red, and not a deep dark red like I love. 

Stacy wanted them to have more wood showing anyway, so between the two of us we sanded them some more (I may have sanded them a LOT more than Stacy was anticipating, but she graciously went with it), and then we rubbed more of the American Walnut stain over all.  It colored the wood where it had gone to bare wood, and it deepened the color significantly.  It looked MUCH better, and blended better with the overall look of the set.

At least, I think so!

The table, chairs, and benches made it safely to Portland this past weekend.  We managed to fit all of them…plus a copper boiler, four big shopping bags full of dishes, and Stacy’s LUGGAGE (which is always significant) in a Honda Odyssey!  And knowing that the table is 50” wide—and a Honda Odyssey is only 49.5” wide…you should be VERY IMPRESSED by that fact!

Stacy has hosted guests for dinner twice since she’s been home, and a batch of homeschoolers besides.  One night she had room for nine people, three pizzas, salad, a pitcher of lemonade, and I don’t know what all else!

I feed eight people all the time.  Maybe I need a wide farmhouse table too!

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Disclaimer:  Stacy may or may not be my friend’s real name.  And if it isn’t, she may or may not have preferred to be called Princess Leia and/or Hot Rod.  And she may or may not be a hobbit.

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
	Mod Vintage Life

Modified Breadboard Farm Table

My dining room is empty again.

I built another farmhouse-style table before the Barn Sale in August, but it didn’t sell there, nor at the October Market.  That didn’t bother me at all, as it looked very nice in my dining room!

I made this one a little smaller than usual; it was just 72 inches long rather than 78 inches.  But it would still seat eight, thanks to the narrow pressed-back chairs I found and painted black to go with it.

The other side got a bench (modified from Ana White).  I originally painted the bench a soft dill green, but I didn’t care for it much…so I painted black over the green, but used the Vaseline trick to give it a very chippy finish.

I call this table top a “modified breadboard.”  Breadboard ends extend across the whole width of a top, but in this case I only made them for the middle three boards of the table.  So the long side boards are the entire length of the table.

It just gives it a little different look, which I like.

I also played with a little white wash on this table.  It makes it look a little gray-er, in my opinion, and adds to the look of age.

This may sound silly…but I’m excited that it’s gone, because now I get to build another one    I am actually working on a HUGE custom table for someone right now, and it’s nice that I’ll have the space to photograph it before it goes to its new home!  But then…I get to figure out what to do next…for ME…

…at least for a little while!

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Perfectly Imperfect	No Minimalist Here
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life A Little Knick Knack

French Country Dining Set

The workshop has occupied so much time and attention this summer that I have a LOT of furniture projects waiting for me! 

I’m at the point of wondering “what to tackle next?” 

I decided to go for the biggest bang—as far as reclaiming space is concerned! 

The table was dismantled, so it wasn’t taking up much room…but I had FIVE finished chairs stacked up in my bedroom, so I decided to finish the set so I could at least have my room back!

If you’ve been with me for long, you know I have a long and glorious history with pressed-back chairs. 

I love ’em. 

One of my first major projects was this gathering table:

…and I loved it so much I later refinished a similar table in black:

Then there was my grand idea of refinishing a dining set with different pressed-back chairs for myself:

…which I didn’t end up keeping, but another friend of mine decided to run with the idea.  She bought up grundles of pressed-back chairs, and I finished them for her.  When she had multiples, though, I received some of the chairs back…in payment!

And that, dear friends, is why I had five pressed-back chairs cluttering up my bedroom!  As luck would have it, I found a sixth chair at Deseret Industries recently, and I was given this table (don’t you love the legs??)…

…what if I put them together??

Ahh…a match made in heaven!

The table top was sanded down and re-stained in Minwax Dark Walnut, which for some reason didn’t want to get very dark.  I liked it anyway.

The six chairs—all different—are painted with a Behr Color match of Sherwin-Williams “Creamy.”  They are glazed with a watered-down burnt-umber craft paint.  That is NOT my preferred form of glaze anymore—but some of these chairs were started long ago, and everything needed to match!

I like these table legs better…

I had fun dressing up the table a little bit….

…someday I’ll have a table that looks good with this doily runner; it’s my goal in life!

Anyone up for an al fresco dinner?

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This project has been featured at Elizabeth & Co. and Domestically Speaking.

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Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
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My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
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Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party
Cowgirl Up!	{aka} design Coastal Charm

Better in Black

It is well known that I have an abiding love affair for pressed-back chairs (as evidenced here, here, and here). In fact, I think altogether I have painted something like 21 pressed-back chairs, all in various shades of white! However, about two weeks ago I was seized with a sudden urge to do a set in BLACK. Lucky for me, I found the perfect dining set to fill the need!

I got a 48" round oak table with a lovely pedestal base. As you can see, the finish on the top was in poor shape.


And six of these gorgeous pressed-back chairs. They are the first of this design that I've seen!

There are two arm chairs in the set.

I wiped all the chairs down with Liquid Sander/Deglosser. It's wonderful for curvy spindles and the like. One chair required some repair work, but then I set up my "assembly line."

It was wonderful to have good weather to work outside this week!

I sanded the top of the table down to bare wood. I am never afraid of a poor finish on the top--that just makes it easier to sand down! More to be scared of are those thick, ultra-durable finishes that take hours to sand off. The base and apron were painted black.


There's not too much to be excited about when the chairs are completely painted in flat black. At this point, you might wonder what you have done...

But then you attack them all with sandpaper and a few coats of polyurethane, and look what you have instead!

Look at me! I'm so pretty!

I love that no two are exactly the same...

Without the leaf, you have a pretty round table to seat four:

Some pretty legs...



Or you can put the 24" leaf in to seat a couple more.

My kids got all excited when I brought this one in the house to take pictures (it's sitting in our front room at the moment), and asked if we were going to keep it...


If I thought I could keep it all to myself...and not have to sit at a table that always seems perpetually jam-sticky...I just might!

This dining set has SOLD.