Finishing a Pine Table, the Natural Way... Part II

(... continued from Finishing a Pine Table, the Natural Way... Part I)


So, I had these two new unfinished pine tables that I didn't know what to do with, and I started Googling... I found lots of websites that all told me to do the same thing:

brew a pot of coffee and apply it to unfinished wood with a sponge or rag.

So, that's what I decided to do.


Kind of.

Hating to waste anything, I took the grounds out of the French press from the morning coffee, put it in a jar, and poured fresh boiled water over them.  Then, while wishing I had some hibiscus to add a warm reddish tone to coffee brown, I remembered I still had some dried elderberries left over from my ginger-elderberry syrup (which I still owe you the story for!) and I began to steep those in a separate jar.

The pink stain is just elderberries.
What a great color!

I spent a day or two adding different amounts of

coffee, elderberries and water to the jars,
occasionally testing it out on the underside of the table,
then steeping and testing and adding
and steeping some more.

Eventually, when my urge to start staining took over,
I poured them both into one giant jar, and let them steep
together as long as I could could take it.

I love how the coffee filter and elderberries
remind me of  a sunflower
with its petals blowing in the wind.

I strained half of the stain,
leaving the other half to steep,
and grabbed the only paintbrush I had around -
a crappy brush with loose bristles,
but it would do for the moment.


Applying the stain heavily, as the websites
told me to do,
I dripped coffee everywhere,
but gave the table a nice wet coat,
smoothing out the drip spots as I went.
And it smelled good!

I waited for it to dry,
and then covered it in stain again.


And then again
and again
and again.

I lost count after five or six coats.

Every time I painted on the stain, the table seemed to be almost exactly what I wanted,
but as each coat dried, the color grew lighter.

And then my husband brought home a sponge brush.  After two coats using the sponge brush, the color was exactly right and I realized that when I work on the next table, I will start out with a sponge brush for best results.

Another thing about painting so many coats of stained water onto wood is that it really dries it out!  It makes sense, and I was thinking of it as I applied coat after coat, but I didn't realize just how dry it had become until I was done staining and running my hands along the rough top.

Look at all the cracks!  It's like a hand without Wunder Budder!

So, it was a good thing I was also planning on making a wax.


To be continued...


XoXo,
Lisa
www.wunderbudder.com

Finishing a Pine Table, the Natural Way... Part I

I live in a small apartment, with an extra large coffee table.

I love the table.  It's the perfect game night table, with enough room for eight people to sit around comfortably and have plenty of table space.

The problem lies within the small apartment, which has shrunk over the years with the addition of hand-me-downs, family heirlooms, yard sale, thrift store and flea market finds, with a few new Things thrown in.  Because of all these Things, the room still fits the perfect game night table, but no longer has room to fit people around it.

Why not just get rid of the Things you might ask?  Isn't that really the problem?  You know your apartment didn't really shrink, right?

No, it has nothing to do with two Collectors of Things banning together to create the greatest collection of Things ever, the apartment really just shrank, magically.  I think it's a Salem thing.  Yeah, I'll stick with that.

Anyway, without the people, the extra large, perfect game night table has become a

Place to Put Things.

Lots of Things.

So, after Christmas, I decided enough was enough and we needed a new, smaller table, stat.  No more waiting to find the perfect used table somewhere, I wanted something Right Then.

So, I went online and ordered a coffee table, with a matching side table.

This is the new coffee table on top of the giant coffee table,
with plenty of room to spare!
I love that it's calendula yellow in this photo.

Two brand new, unfinished pine tables.

I've never finished a table before, but as well as being a lover of Things, I'm also a lover of Projects.  And being Me, I'm a lover of Projects, especially when they have something to do with Living Naturally.

So I decided to finish the table with items I had
at home.

To be continued... (go to Part II)

XoXo,

Lisa

www.wunderbudder.com