Kitchen Table Makeover

We were gifted with a wonderful kitchen table when we got married. We both loved the wood that after several generations still looked new. There was one small problem with it: I'd been staring at the indented design since we got married wondering "how can I stop crumbs from collecting in those cracks?" I knew I could fill them in with a simple wood filler but I was hesitant, fearing I'd ruin the whole thing -- which I did not want to do since we received it for free from family!

As with many of the projects I take on, one day I just decided to bite the bullet and do it, not fearing the outcome. Well, it came out.....okay. I'm not thrilled with the results but I'm not repulsed by them either. I'm sure this is making you want to try this at home. It actually works well with our decor since it's not perfect, and I rarely like the "perfect" look when it comes to decorating our home. If that's your style and you have said crumb-collecting problem in your kitchen table, I suggest you give this a try. ;)

top left: a full picture of our kitchen table

top right: design a.k.a "crack problem"

bottom left: wood filler I picked up at Home Depot

bottom right: squeezing wood filler into the cracks

The whole squeezing filler into the cracks thing didn't really pan out for me. It was just a lot of work. I discovered that squeezing it onto the putty knife and filling in the cracks that way was a much easier route (see top left picture below). 

As you can see, the wood filler filled up those cracks nicely! Well, you can't really see, since this is an iPhone picture and I made it into a collage, so....just take my word for it. I bought a sample paint from Lowes. Valspar, in "Belle Grove Antique White." I mixed it with about a cup of grey paint I got from a friend a while back, which heightened the antique look.

I've also been really into chalk paint lately, but um, have you seen the prices for chalk paint?! Not in our budget.....so I improvised and made a paste of spackle and water. Mixed it up well so there were no clumps and then added it to the paint mixture and stirred it up. Easy trick to get the chalk paint affect for less! Then I got to work painting!

BUT, I made a terrible discovery after painting the table. The cracks were STILL visible!!!!!


So....I filled it in a little more, painted again, and let it dry. Last step was to wax it. The wax seemed to make the filled-in-cracks a little more visible as well. Oh goodness...... some projects just don't happen the way Pinterest makes it out to be.

Anyways, it looks quite nice with the placemats, water, etc on it. ;)

OH yes, and I forgot to mention that I distressed it a bit with a very light sanding paper. It matches our hutch perfectly, and to be honest, my decorating style is definitely the imperfect pieces that people are throwing out anyway. This is TOTALLY up my alley, imperfections and all. 

“Kitchen Table Makeover” is part of a blog relaunch series entitled "31 Days of Responding to Him" 

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