Done!!

I realized recently I had never shared the completed project with all of you. Sometime this past spring I was suddenly on a chair mission and started thinking about what I wanted to do with the dining room set.  The set I had before had served me well for a long time (10 years to be exact) but honestly it really was too big and bulky and the chairs too tall for my modest dining room. Besides, the table needed refinishing and the chairs needed reupholstering and I wasn’t ready to do that much work on a set I didn’t love. 
Then in October I showed you some shots of refinishing the table and buffet top.  November found me with a couple free weekends (at long last!) so I finally got around to the chairs. And I’ll be honest- they were a complete pain to redo. I cleaned, lightly sanded, primed, painted (2 coats), then did a wash over the paint with the stain to match the table, and then three coats of varnish. And finally reupholstering the seats and reattaching them to the chairs (and yes, I still need to get some scotch guard for them). Anyway, it was very time consuming and far from perfect (don’t ask me about the big scratch I managed to get in the leaf of the table as I was putting it into the handy storage spot under the table top). And yet… I am thrilled with the results and they are even better than I imagined. I love it. 
Well, here’s where we started…

New (to me) table ($50 from Habitat Restore) and mismatched chairs bought (various places $40 for 6 of them) and ready to refinish …
AND… Done at last!!

 
I love how it fits in my dining room, how it looks elegant and almost antique, and mostly, how it is finished. 

Nerdy confession: I wanted to set the table with my mom’s wedding china (blue and white) like all those “real” bloggers when they staged their house. But let’s be honest, the dog crate in the corner with plants all over it would have given me away as a hack. So there you have it, the unset \ real life actual person blogger version. Some day I may have to put the china out, just to see how it looks. 

http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/2012/12/transformation-thursday-no-182.html