From Outdated to Farmhouse: Dining Room Set Makeover!!

A dining set project can be an immense amount of work but the payoff can be huge when it turns out just as you hoped. I had been thinking about re-doing a dining room set for a while. I had looked around for an old set that needed some love without luck. The “modern farmhouse” tables are so nice because they have great character and I really wanted a dining set that captured that style.

I stumbled upon a set that a family member was getting rid of... Here are the before pics...

The table itself has that farmhouse table feel with those thick turned legs. It looks really solid and sturdy! Perfect look and it has 2 leaves to make it bigger!

Not sure if  I need the hutch... but maybe I will be inspired once I start working.
The chairs are nice, there are 2 with arm rests and 4 without.

Here’s the base of the hutch,(or sideboard) which  I definitely wanted for storage. The drawer fronts were a little outdated with the carving patterns but I decided that I could figure that out.

The first piece of the set that I worked on was the side board. Full details HERE With my sander, I removed the finish on the top surface down to bare wood. The next step was to smooth the bare wood to a nice finish by working my way up to a fine grit sanding disk. I worked up to a 220 grit to get a nice smooth finish. 

Because it was summer and very humid, I moved on to sanding the seats of the chairs, the tabletop and the 2 leaves. Every piece that was sanded was to be stained. I wanted to wait for the humidity to drop a bit before the staining and finishing process.

This was what the finish looked like before I started sanding. It was outdated.

Here is the sideboard.

 Here are the chairs with one of the seats sanded down.

Sanding took FOREVER!!!! It felt like the sanding was going to last the rest of my life! The weather had cooled off a bit too (after weeks of spare time sanding) and finally, it was all done and it was time to move on to staining. Thank goodness!!! I chose to use a carbon gray stain. It’s pretty dark and is very cool tones the top of the table and the top of the sideboard had a lot of warmth left in the wood so this stain really toned that down and worked great.

The next step is to put a finish on the sanded areas to seal it up. I chose to use a wipe on poly. It’s got a satin finish so it is not too shiny. To apply, simply take a lint free cloth and wipe the poly on to the surface. It was really easy to do. The tabletop required more layers of poly so I did lightly sand in between coats and when the final coat was dry, buffed it to a nice sheen. OH SO SMOOTH!

Now that the staining portion was done, I moved on to the next phase which was painting. I chose to paint the rest of the surfaces with chalk paint. I used Rustoleum's chalked in country gray for the sideboard, two chairs with arms and the legs of the table. For the 4 armed chairs I used a navy blue chalk paint to match them to a cabinet that I had previously done for the dining room. You can check out that post HERE After the 4 armless chairs were painted, they got a coat of Matte finish poly-acrylic.

The rest of the surfaces that were painted gray, were then wiped with a dark gray glaze to give them a more antiqued look then finished with matte polyacrylic.

It looks absolutely amazing!!! Her are the after photos...

 Before and After comparison of the sideboard. There was a lot of steps to this piece and I will be explaining that in another post! Check that out Sideboard Upcycle

The set in the dining room!

Before & After of the table.

My little pup wanted in on the pictures. This project was a lot of work but I’m so happy with the way it turned out. Don't be afraid to give this furniture project a try!