The refinished table

We started the refinishing project last Monday and after 6 days of stripping, sanding, steel wooling (is that a word), staining, priming, painting and polyurethaning (5 coats) we are finished. I have included before and after shots of our table.

Just a quick note about the history of this table. We bought it after we got married it was a nice unfinished table with six chairs. We stained it on the balcony of our apartment in Shreveport when Ernie was stationed at Barksdale AFB (I'm surprised it didn't get stolen off the balcony) nice apartments!! Ha ha. So after 9 years of wear and tear mostly from the kids it was looking really bad. In one week we were able to bring this table back to life and look forward to having meals with friends and family on it for years to come.

We also found a cute a little gem under the table where the kids have both written their names in marker (Will's has to have been very recent since he just started writing his name a few months ago) so I left that there to look back on many years from now.