This time last year we were up to our eyes in dust and stour as the kitchen from hell was being transformed into the kitchen from heaven. Well over the last 12 months we have really come to love this space and to be honest despite having a lounge at the front of the house we spend most of our time in this beautiful, light, open space.
So having spent so much time in so much filth you’d think that I’d have stayed away from major renovation projects? Woah no, not at all. And here’s the reason why.
Despite this being a great party / dining space we haven’t been able to have lots of friends round for big meals because we just couldn’t seat everyone at the dinner table. Our lovely core group of around 14 friends just didn’t fit around the table that we have so we were in need of a flexible, not too expensive solution. Before Mum & Dad moved last year I managed to snaffle the dining table that, for as long as I can remember, the whole family sat around to eat. Now although it’s no great antique it’s a brilliantly useful piece of furniture that’s managed to endure all that a family of six could throw at it. Plus of course over the years with all those Christmas dinners and family events it holds a lot of great memories for me. The original is a draw leaf table made in1950 ( I know this because it’s been date stamped on the underneath but sadly there’s no place of manufacture given) with leaves that pull out at each end making it long enough to seat a couple of extra people. If you put ‘1950s draw leaf table’ into Google it’ll throw up lots of variations but our particular design featured a large, plain bulb at the centre of each leg and two runners rather than one at the base of the legs. Being the obstinate woman that I am I’d decided (much to Sam’s annoyance) that the ideal solution would be to find and buy the exact same table which could sit side by side or end to end with the current one to make a large dining table that could seat up to 14 people. Easy… right? Wrong!
After weeks and weeks of trawling the ‘net, and numerous messages over Ebay ensuring some greedy woman in London that applying a layer of chalk paint didn’t make the table worth £300 I found an exact match. Here in Brighton. For just £10.
Now I expected a bit of damage, the odd dent, scratch and watermark but as you can see below what I got was a truly knackered, pitiful piece of furniture with large areas of veneer missing and extensive rippling across the surface. Yep you’ve gotta love how students in rented acccomodation treat their furniture.
As a child I’d watched my Dad make furniture from scratch and French polish both chairs and tables to within an inch of their lives. And so with what knowledge I got from him last Monday I set about renovating this pathetic table in order to give it some much needed love. Initially Sam and I talked about buying veneer to try and create an invisible repair but given my limited skills and the fact that I didn’t want to be working on this for the rest of my natural life only to end up with a poor result that would haunt me every dinner time we decided to go a la tomofholland and go with a ‘visible’ mend.
So on Monday after filling in the worst of the holes with wood filler I set about sanding
……….and sanding
……….and sanding
……….and sanding
(stops to change grade of paper)
………and sanding
…….and sanding
(stops to aplogise to neighbours for the noise)
………..and sanding
………..and sanding
…………. until eventually on Friday after two coats of paint and four coats of varnish (each interspersed with rubbing down with ultrafine grade wire wool of course) it was done.
And so was I.
It had taken far longer than I’d expected and yes I moaned about it a lot whilst at the same time refusing Sam’s frequent offers of help. Being bloody minded of course I’d fixed in my brain how this was going to go and whilst Sam was tasked with painting the dining chairs the dining table was my project.
Yes I’ll admit it’s not perfect but I really did give it my all. My hips still hurt, my neck is sore and my back is killing me but I am so, so happy with the results. Our twin tables really make this room and whether there are seven of us sitting around it for our Stitch & Bitch sessions or fourteen of us eating and drinking at it into the early hours it makes the kitchen from heaven just that little bit more heavenly plus, now the dust has settled I can finally get back to my knitting.
Have a great weekend all
J x
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