After emailing him the Craigslist listing, Ben picked up this little table on his way home from work. We learned a valuable lesson not to purchase furniture without both of us seeing it. The table looked nice in the pictures, but in person it was pretty banged up and reeked of smoke. The seats were covered in an awful printed vinyl meant to look like tan tooled leather. We listed it back on Craigslist, but couldn’t find anyone willing to take it for anything near the price we’d paid.
I put on two coats of Zinsser Cover Stain primer. Then I put on another coat, for good measure. I didn’t sand before or after or at any point during the re-do because I didn’t want to get too complicated with my first project and sanding scares me. There are a few drip marks, nothing too noticeable, and brush strokes were reduced with the addition of Floetrol.
After priming, I painted 4-5 thin coats of Valspar white semi-gloss. I used the untinted gallon I’d purchased to paint all our trim. I like the bright, happy white and the money saved. We finished off the painted area with some coats of Polycrylic. The table top got a rub down of Restor-a-Finish.
The smoke smell is gone, and we love the end result!
