Antique Store Find/Table Make Over Using Gel Stain

You find the best items when your not looking! This came from a huge antique store we had stopped in on our way to a winery. It was actually being used to display other items the store was selling.  It always pays to ask if you find something of interest. Fortunately it was for sale! The tag was hidden underneath.

I loved the detail and this piece was $30 reduced. Score…

Before I began cleaning I added a couple L brackets to the underside of the top to two of the legs.

I first cleaned with a mixture of warm water, white vinegar and a pump of Dawn dish liquid. I dont measure for this recipe. I just used a lint free cloth, a sponge, a toothbrush and got to scrubbing. Yup, this is gross. Pretty surprising for a piece that didn’t have a bad smell and looked lightly used.

I let the table dry then went in with Rust-oleum deglosser and scrubbing pads in the hopes of getting this piece as close to a natural wood finish as possible. This product came in the Rust-oleum Transformation Kit I had previously purchased and used on a gun cabinet I had turned into a dining room cabinet. This  product gets scrubbed on with the pads and then rinsed off very well with water and left to dry before proceeding with anything else.

Not as much of the residual finish was removed with the deglosser  as I would have liked so I used my electric sander and hand sanded as much as I could.

This is after the sanding residue was cleaned off. A lot of the surface color was still very uneven but all the shine was finally removed.

I used Varathane Pre-stain Wood Conditioner before applying gel stain. I brushed it on and wiped of the excess with a lint free cloth. This product was new to me along with the stain I ended up using.

The wood conditioner is meant to sit on the piece for 30 minutes to 2 hours before you start applying the stain and that is exactly what I did.

To my surprise the wood conditioner brought out a very red color in the wood. To deal with this and hoping to tone the red down, I applied gel stain by Minwax called Aged Oak.

I applied the stain with a foam brush. I stained in sections, let the product sit on the wood for a few minutes then with a lint free cloth and light hand I wiped away any excess. There are a lot of nooks and crannies carved into this piece so I took care to make sure the stain didn’t pool in them.

One application resulted in this beautiful rich color. The red still showed through some but as the stain dried it definitely improved. It wasn’t as aged an appearance as I had thought this stain would provide and I’m not certain if was due to the red color that resulted from the wood conditioner or not but I’m very happy with the final result.

For the top coat I applied Minwax Polycrylic with foam brushes in a couple different sizes. I used the small 1 inch brushes for the legs and body to help push the product into all the carved areas and a 3 inch brush to go over the top using nice long strokes going from one end to the other. In between applying the layers I smoothed the finish with plain steel wool buffing with the grain of the wood. I got this tip from the You Tube Channel Pretty Distressed and it worked great! I applied 6 layers of the Polycrylic to the top of the table for extra durability and chose to only apply 1 to the legs and body.

It was fun to branch out and use products I had never used before. The gel stain is something I will definitely reach for again. As for the steel wool, I’m going to start experimenting with it on some of my decoupage projects:)

If you would like to see more of this project, head on over to my You Tube Channel, Ourhighstreethome.

Thank you for stopping by:)

Roni♥