How to Repurpose an Old Table with Stencils

In this post I’ll be sharing How to Repurpose an Old Table with Stencils. 

I wish I could tell you all, that I found this table on a curb or it was bought at a garage sale, but nope this awful mess of a table is ours, and is the epitome of what a slippery slope looks like. 

It’s pretty embarrassing, and I’m ashamed to say that I did that to it. 

However, this table has a redemption story which you’ll see in this post on How to Repurpose an Old Table with Stencils.

We’ve had this table to quite some time.

It’s been in his family for a while, not really sure how long. 

When we got it, the middle leaf wasn’t in the table. 

I sanded the leafless table down and routered a new edge on it. 

He even went as far as putting the legs on a lathe and sanding them down as well. 

Then the leafless tabletop and legs were re-stained and sealed. 

Shortly after all that work went into it, the middle leaf, was given to us. 

We put the leaf in on occasions, but it always looked so awkward because it was a different edging, thickness and color than the rest of the table.

One day I was painting something while standing over the kitchen table, and I accidentally got some paint on the table, but thought, “Oh well, it needs to be refinished anyway to match the leaf.” 

Let me tell you that one little paint job was a slippery slope that lead to painting pieces of trim, frames and any other project I could think of, with the thought process that it would be ok because it needed to be refinished anyway.

After much time of it being covered with tablecloths, to hide all the paint marks, we finally got around to sanding the entire piece down together, so the middle leaf is the same height as the rest of the table.

I also put a new router edge on the entire table, so that it matches. 

With the sanding and the edging finished, it was ready for a coat of Espresso stain. When the stain was dried, I stenciled a beautiful vine pattern around the top edge. 

After I stenciled it, I distressed the stenciled area with a 220 grit sandpaper, and then applied more stain over the areas I had hit with the sandpaper, including the stenciled part.  

The excess stain was then wiped off. 

Then 4-5 coats of polyurethane were applied, sanding with 220-600 grit sandpaper between coats.

I ended up sanding and painting the skirt and the legs of the table with “Natural Tan” latex paint.  I should have distressed the legs a bit because they’re already distressed in areas where little toddler hands have tried pushing the chairs in, and missed. ;)

What do you all think?  It’s obviously a vast improvement from the sloppy painted look, but do you like the new look? 

I feel like I’ve absolved my horrendous mistake of using our kitchen table as a drop cloth, what do you think? 

Would you consider stenciling your kitchen table?

Thank you for sharing this project on How to Repurpose an Old Table with Stencils!