The dining room upgrade…

Awhile back, I mentioned my quest for a new (used) table and chairs for the dining room. I managed to exceed my expectations finding some awesome chairs in several locations and then got stalled on the table. It seemed like everything on craigslist was way to expensive for what they were offering.
One day I headed to the local Habitat for Humanity Restore just to see… wasn’t even sure they had tables, but I was going to check. And there it was…. a beautiful oak double pedestal table with the leaves that stored inside (I love that!). The table top had some scratches and paint streaks on it, but the price was right ($50), the size was right, it was coming home with me!

Donal happened to buy a stove at the Restore the very next day, so we pooled resources and helped each other get our large purchases home. (Love that guy!)
For the next few weeks, I had two dining room tables and a lot of chairs in the dining room, making it seem even smaller. And then some woman from the magical land of craigslist came, gave me cash, and drove away with the old table and chairs. Fabulous. And, as it turns out, I made enough cash on the old set to buy all the new stuff and all the supplies to refinish them. Perfect!
On to the refinishing project…
My buffet –which I LOVE—came from my dad’s grandma, so it’s really old. And there was an unfortunate incident a few years ago with a colander of tomatoes… that leaked… and made a stain… and it caused me great anguish for a long time. And it became clear the only way to get rid of it would be to refinish the top of it. So I matched the stain to buffet (since the rest of it doesn’t need to be refinished).
Saturday I stripped the finish off the top of the buffet and the table top. 

Tonight I pulled out my trusty orbital sander and started at the sanding. The edges of the table took as long as the entire table top! Why did I choose a table with a fancy edge?? It felt like a lot of sanding, but I was eventually done (and the dining room was a dusty mess).
Next I cleaned all the dust off the table top and buffet. And then I applied the wood conditioner and then stained them both.
 

The table is a different wood than the buffet and has a lot less natural red in it, so the color doesn’t match exactly, but I think it looks great.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get a coat of polyurethane on them.