Finishing the End Table

Before I can buy the wood to build my chairs I have to do the following 5 things:

1 – finish the little end table for the front room

2 – sand and paint the stairs

3 – patch the floor underneath the closet door in the upstairs hall

4 – replace the drawer glides on my dresser

5 – fix the door handle on our bedroom door

This list was part self imposed (giving myself a reward for doing all the less fun little projects) and part imposed by my lovely husband (he hates when I have a bunch of stuff on the go). So here I am on my first task, staining and clear coating the end table I built.

I used water based stain to match the end table already in the room. This time I found it almost opaque and the top turned out almost solid brown. All the detail of the herringbone pattern is lost. For the sake of completion I left it as is and put a coat of polycrilic on top…but one day I will strip the top and use a lighter colour or something.

It looks good in place, matching but not identical to the one at the other end of the sofa. If you squint your eyes you can almost see the pair of lamps on either table that I will one day be able to afford

And now we know: the Minwax water based stains now have to be mixed at the paint counter and seem to be much more opaque. I will stick with the oil based in the future.