A Table and Tung Oil

A project we can call done!

When I saw this table, I told Larry,"Look! All we will have to do to it is clean it up and haul it to our Marietta booth. Leave it exactly as it is, it's a primitive. We can just flip it and make some easy money."

Yeah, right. He looked dubious. That's because he knows me too well. I will think a thing needs no work, but then...

So we bought the green primitive table, carried it up a long flight of stairs out of the basement of the antique mall where we found it and got it into the van along with the two chairs, kitchen table, and other totes and boxes already in there. We might start a trip with an empty van but seldom does it return that way.

It's waited a month for us to get around to it.

At first glance it sure looked like the table didn't need much. Then I noticed a long chip out of the top. No worries, we can cut that part off the board and rearrange the top boards to make it look fine.

Then there was the drawer. It didn't slide right. After some thought and hunting for some pieces to make it work properly, much banging and false starts, the fix was in.

There were these random nails sticking out here and there too. The piece was made with leftovers, I think, reassembled to make a table that must have been in a garage to judge by the amount of dirt in and on it. So we pulled nails. And pulled nails.

Finally it was time to sand it down and get the loose paint knocked off. A LOT of loose paint. Most of the green left. Which made me a little sad because I liked it, but I can't sell it with loose paint.

This afternoon I put the tung oil finish on it.

That stuff is awesome but it stinks to high heaven and it is so sticky!

Yesterday afternoon I scrubbed almost all the paint off of my hands and arms and now? Back to scrubbing.

But the table is done, and I'm happy. Larry is happy too--happy to be done with it. There's nothing quite like pulling nails out of well-aged oak.

Tomorrow it will get a buffing up, then another coat of tung oil, then buffed again, and it will be ready for the booth.

The "it doesn't need anything other than cleaning up" table took us a good 6 hours or more.

Worth it? Totally. I'm just sad that there is no room for it in our house or it would be staying here. This small house can be a blessing, you know, because I say that about a lot of the things we buy for resale.

Tomorrow, those desks I promised to show you. They're done, really they are, but this table just wanted to be bragged on. It's rough, primitive and absolutely a one-of-a-kind find.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.