I was never interested in woodworking when we had Kemahiran Hidup (Living Skills classes that comprised of cooking, sewing and woodworking) back in school. The sawdust made my highly sensitive nose sneeze like mad, the tools felt scary to me (afraid of sawing off my own finger) and I could never hit a nail in straight. What a girl, pfft. Hahaha.
It's quite funny how things have changed. I'm staying up late looking for reviews of saws and rotary tools and looking for electric sanders. I look at old furniture in a whole different light. I don't think I'm particularly good at woodworking yet, but I think it's fun to hammer stuff and finish things with a coat of paint... so it's pretty much a hobby since sewing turned into a job for me heheh. Also, it doesn't hurt that this hobby bonds me and my dad-- I only recently found out that he built a wooden sofa back in the day and that he has a jigsaw. :-O
My brother-in-law had an old student desk that he wanted to get rid off.
Stains n' stickers, that's how student tables roll.
My mom pointed out that this table was actually still pretty solid, which I never noticed before. Initially I wanted to just sand it and stain it in pickling white, but when I went round poking my nose into the nooks of this table, I realised I could take this table apart. HEY!
Loosen up my buttons babe a-hah
Just a matter of looking for screws and unscrewing them, and then kicking the pieces to to push them apart from each other.
Being an old table, the pieces were quite tightly joined to each other so it took some elbow grease to separate all the pieces. Though my elbows didn't get greasy. Ha... ha okanywaymovingon.
I had my eye on a few adjustable table legs from Ikea (I wanted this table to be a cutting table, so it had to sit higher than regular tables to prevent hunching and backaches which I get a LOT :-/ ), and ended up with these Finnvard trestle legs which I assembled sans shelves to keep the airy look of its non-adjustable cousin here.
Painted a coat of primer and topped it with 2 coats of leftover paint from our house renovations. Yay for leftovers!
The painting isn't perfect as I didn't manage to get a really smooth coat compared to spray painting... I think it's because of the brushed I used, so I shall try the next painting project with a different brush. I probably need to practice more too.
Meanwhile, I sanded the table top with the electric sander (tiring!). You can see from the 2nd pic at the top of the post that the table had some dark stains on it, and sanding it down helped clean it up.
Next, my favorite part: staining the table top with ingredients from the kitchen. In the photo above, I was trying to stain the table with a mixture of tea, instant coffee and turmeric. After a layer, I decided that I wanted a darker color. A muchhhh darker color.
So, back to the kitchen!
11.00PM: "It smells like Starbucks in here!", said the husband. Hahaha.
Bought some coarse black coffee powder, boiled it up, cooled it down, and applied the coffee all over the table top, rubbing the coffee granules into it and let it dry overnight.
The black coffee stain really bought out the grains of the wood, and darkened it. You can see some light patches in the photo above-- this was where, after 1-2 coats, I realised I did not sand those parts down evenly and the stain couldn't penetrate below. So I sanded those areas by hand and stained them again.
I had some wood oil in hand so I oiled the table top after having enough of coffee stain layers.
This is what it looked like after the oil had penetrated the wood fully.
Look at all the grains, the shading of the dark and light tones! I am in love.
My husband helped me with affixing the table top onto the trestle legs... that was definitely something I couldn't do on my own because this table top was HEAVY as an elephant. No I've never carried an elephant before. Yes I am probably exaggerating. Maybe a baby elephant? I don't know.
My husband helped me with affixing the table top onto the trestle legs... that was definitely something I couldn't do on my own because this table top was HEAVY as an elephant. No I've never carried an elephant before. Yes I am probably exaggerating. Maybe a baby elephant? I don't know.
The photos of the process were taken with my phone. Here are a few more taken with my camera, which I think is a more accurate representation of the color:
Really, really love the tones. Did I mention that the table smells of coffee??? OH. MYYYYY.
I sniffed my table many times since we moved it to my studio. I don't think the smell will last forever, but I wish it would.
I really wished it would.
/love song fade to black
I love you, coffee stained cutting table.
