Back in Italy on the base they have a "store" of sorts called the Airman's Attic. Basically, it's like a Goodwill or other thrift store but everything's free if you're a certain rank or below. Anyway, it was there that I picked up this table. I had the idea even there at the store to sand it down and re-stain/paint it. That was almost 4 years ago.

Here are some photos of the yucky, disgusting "before". The table was stained (yucky mildew-like stains, not wood stain) like this when I got it. It was used as counter space in the kitchen and now it's our dining room table. Don't worry, I usually covered it with a large tablecloth.





I started work on it last weekend. I took it apart and lugged the table top out onto the patio to sand down. Yeah... took about 30 minutes of doing that before I decided to give up and rent or borrow an electric sander from someone. Another week passed and discovered that no one had one we could borrow. So I went to Home Depot and stopped by their tool rental. The guy there tells me they no longer rent them because people would rather just spend a little extra to buy one since they were so cheap. So I bought one. A Ryobi 5" Orbital Sander and some extra hook and loop sanding pads.

A few hours of random work every 15 minutes or so and it now looks MUCH better.



The stains are still noticeable but way less obvious. I'm hoping after adding the darker stain and paint, that it'll be little more than an addition of "character" to the wood versus the nastiness it was before.



Hopefully I can get it stained all nice and pretty by the end of this week and start sanding down the legs and getting them ready for being spraypainted black. More photos and blog to follow.