Refinishing Our Coffee Table

Here's (above) the reason that I started refinishing our coffee table in the first place. The table already had white stains on it from our renter in the condo when we were in California; now I see how he might have stained it. I put a bowl of hot rice on the table with a dish towel underneath it. Apparently the heat still got to the table, and this is what it did to it. Weird huh?

So here we go...

The inside squares are done. What's with those blotches?Having fun but getting messy!


All sanded down!And here comes the stain. I know it's drastic, but I wanted a black table to go with the rest of the furniture. Well, it's not all black yet, but that's the goal eventually.

Welp, it's definitely black. Notice how I didn't stain or sand the under ledge? No, it was hard enough to do the top. Did I mention this project took almost my whole Sunday? Actually I never really finished until a week later. Our coffee table waited patiently on our patio while I figured out what I wanted to do with it. At one point we considered trashing it, but that'd be silly. It's so pretty....well it was and I can make it pretty again.

So that flat black...no good. So I sanded it again lightly (which was part of the stain directions) and put a gloss on top. It looks a little shiny in this picture, but let me assure you it really turned out looking fantastic. I much prefer the wood grain showing through as opposed to the dark, harsh, flat black it was before. I need to take a picture of it in the living room. With the rest of the furniture around it, it really looks sharp. So white stain problem solved.And here's a random picture for your viewing pleasure of our bomb kitty Butters. He's a stud right? Don't you love the little mustache he's sporting? He was playing in the fireplace for a while. We should have been good kitten parents and taught him not to do that, but it was just too funny. Definitely worth it for this picture. Cleaning him up was fun too, well for us. He wasn't the biggest fan of being wiped down with a wet cloth. Funny thing is though, he loves water. What cat loves water?! Butters!
Peace.