Man, local Buy Nothing Groups on Fb Marketplace are wild. You can claim dibs on everything from a half-finished box of granola bars to a full brand-new patio set from your neighbors. I have the worst luck, however, since somehow I’m always late to the party and like the 14th to comment “would love this, please!” I think there is some sort of moral code to randomly picking a recipient after 24 hours and not just by who’s first, but I’m pretty sure most don’t follow the rules.
So, remember how my DIY Not a Roll Out Pantry left me cramped and needing a new round dining table? Given space for chairs and people, I needed it to be at most 48″ in diameter so that my pantry could swing out fully if needed. Turns out that is a weird smallish measurement to find in a funky but inexpensive dining table. Ikea, Wayfair, and even Target were not helpful until one day browsing through FB I came across someone on my feed in a local group giving away a small round dining table for free, and I was the first to comment!
I don’t know if I should be proud or insulted that maybe no one else wanted this thing haha, but clearly it was a 1960s to 70’s era unique find, even if it was damaged and peeling. I knew I could refurbish or restyle it somehow and make it work.
Once I knew I was being gifted this masterpiece, I arranged pickup and hopped in my husband’s flatbed F150, with snow and ice still in the cab from a brutal winter.
The best part was that it came in 2 pieces so I could lay it flat and not worry about damage.
I picked up the table at night, in the dark, but once I got it home I saw what truly bad shape it was in, although it was equally as beautiful. The wood veneer was cracked and peeling so badly at the base there was no refurbishing that part, so a fun paint color it would have to be. The flower-inlayed wood top, however, was salvageable and arguably the best part of this piece.
I decided to paint the base green; it made the piece more modern, and I color-matched it to the chipped paint of my antique pantry door for some sort of cohesiveness. After I scraped off the chips of wood veneer and sanded it down, I slathered 2 coats of semi-gloss exterior paint (for durability).
I’ll admit that I didn’t stop to take many pics of this project, partly because I ran through it so fast. The top was bubbling, peeling, dry, and brittle. I read through so many DIYs on how to restore damaged wood veneer that I used the one that seemed the easiest: iron it!
To elaborate, use parchment paper on the table and an iron to get some of the bubbles down while it heats the original glue under the veneer to stick together. Quickly add weights on top to hold it down for a day, and revisit.
The table is over 50 years old, so that old glue was not cutting it. I took some wood glue and used toothpicks to scrape it under the bubbles and then added some more weights to hold it down. This worked pretty well, so after it dried I was left with just the chips, so I carefully sanded it down with light-grit sandpaper a few times.
Then I used a water-based semi-gloss poly to seal the tabletop in 3 coats. Don’t make my mistake and listen to the temperature guide on the label. It was winter and way too cold out, so my poly ended up a little grainy in some areas. But hey, it was free, and in the scope of its other imperfections, I was OK with that.
When we were done, we searched for the perfect chairs to match/mismatch, and Wayfair had these adorable mid-century modern ones with backs that matched the table’s wood exactly.
What an improvement, and we only spent a total of about $50 on the free table, which was just paint, poly, glue, and sandpaper. That allowed us to splurge on more expensive, trendy, and durable chairs. The reality was that we did not need a large rectangular dining table for just the 3 of us. Sure, it came in handy for holiday and birthday dinners when we had large groups over celebrating, but we always added an extra folding table anyway. So why not simplify our daily lives? With free stuff, even better.
Make! My Mistake 