…Sand it down and start again. As you may recall, I recently finished the coffee table I was building for our living room. With our new furniture, I thought it would be the perfect idea and tip of the cap for the room. Here’s what is was supposed to look like.
I wanted to match it to the dining room table as closely as I could, so that the room would really flow together. Well, upon further review, and nearly breaking my back carrying this table up and down the stairs and all around the house, I noticed that I didn’t quite get the same look.
On the right is the dining room table, and to the left is the coffee table. Even though I used the exact same stains, it didn’t quite come out right. Ironically, the darker/redder look was what I was going for originally with the dining room table, but there was no way I was going to sand that down and start over since I had poly’d it and all. So my options were simple, live with the mismatched tables, or sand down the coffee table and restain. I chose to sand it down. After carrying it to the back yard…again, I busted out my electric sander and went to town. Now, I know when I stained it, I didn’t wipe off as much stain (which is why it was darker), but when sanding, it just kills sandpaper so fast. I went through about 20 sheets of 60 grit sandpaper just to try to get it back to the bare wood.
As you can see with this small section, I couldn’t get it all the way down, most of the dark stain still was in the wood, and I caused a few new marks as I was sanding (because I was really digging in). After the entire table was sanded down, I took to the stain again. This time I started (like before) with a coat of Minwax’s “English Chestnut,” and when I was done, it started to look a bit too dark again. Plus, some of the red from the original “gunstock” color was still there, so to lighten it up, I applied “Golden Pecan” as a second coat, which is the same color as our floor.
As I applied the second coat, I was able to wipe away a lot of the really dark areas, which helped. Now, I had to wait and carry the table back inside (again) to see how it matched. Wouldn’t you know, it was pretty close (as close as I was going to get). So I heaved the beast to the back yard one last time to Poly it up. Three coats (and even though it wasn’t in the forecast, it started to rain right after the second coat). After the third coat was done and had dried, I pulled the table in for the final look. You tell me, I’d say it is pretty perfect.
The extra sanding really brought out the grain in the wood, which I really do love. So even though it was a huge pain in the butt, and it took much longer than I expected, I am extremely pleased with the overall look. And in case you are wondering why it’s on a dropcloth, I just wanted to be 100% sure it was dry before I moved it onto the carpet. I would hate to ruin our new carpet because I wanted to see how it all looked.
About Matt and MC
We just recently bought our first home, and we decided to share our story of our adventures with you. The ups and downs of home ownership, and all the fun we'll have in between. Ignore the typos and just have fun, that's what we're here for. 
