DIY: Staining an End Table

On Sunday, J and I began a DIY Project that made us feel like we were on cloud 9, literally. We ventured out into the world of furniture staining. Josh and I have never stained furniture, we've painted, never stained. This made for a new and interesting DIY project for us. About a week ago we decided that this would be a great first project as hubs and wifey so we headed over to Home Depot to pick our poison. We went with Minwax Wood Finish in ebony and Minwax Quick Drying Polyurethane for a shiny finish. Each product rounded out to be about $5.00, we went with a small amount of stain because we only had one table, which made for a cheapo DIY. After purchasing a foam brush, a pack of application pads and latex gloves we were all set to stain! Bring it on!

J began by giving the table a good and manly sanding. It took him a good 20 minutes to get the table in staining condition. After he sanded he headed out to a friends and left me to do the staining; but don't worry he came back and applied the second coat and did a much better job than I did.The table needed a really good sand down, which J did very patiently. After the sanding I cleaned all the excess off of the table (all part of the process) then began applying the first coat of stain.

After the application of the first coat we waited 4 hours for the it to dry...that's right 4...it seemed like 40. After 4 hours Hubs finally made it home and applied the second coat for me. If I have learned anything about J this week it is he has an excellent talent for applying wood stain. He did a much...much better job than I did, honestly I think he liked it just a little.After applying the second coat, which you can see was magnificently done, we plugged in the fan from our bedroom and waited 8 hours before applying the polyurethane finish. After the finish was applied we realized we had learned a big lesson about would stain.

Lessons we learned about staining wood:

1. It is a long process but the end result is wonderful.

2. Boys are better at it than girls.

3. It stains your skin...literally...one of my toe nails looks awful because of the stuff!

4. Breathing in the fumes for close to 20 hours makes you feel real good!

5. Breathing in the fumes for about 20 hours leaves you with a pretty bad hang-over.

6. I should of called my sister for advice.

7. It takes a little longer than they say on the label for the finish to dry.

8. We should have worn masks!

9. The "stickiness" and the "dots" will go away.

10. Waiting to stain a table outside in warm weather would have been the wiser choice.

Even though we learned our lesson or should I say lessons? We LOVE the out come! Big Reveal coming soon!