Find out how much your project will cost Browse All Project Categories Refer a Pro who does this service and receive an Amazon Gift Card! Share your cost experience Help others plan and budget for their projects 2. New York, NY 4. Las Vegas, NV 5. Los Angeles, CA 11. Fort Lauderdale, FL 14. San Antonio, TX 16. San Diego, CA 19. San Jose, CA 21. Saint Paul, MN 25. West Palm Beach, FL 28. Fort Worth, TX 33. Kansas City, MO 34. Silver Spring, MD 39. Colorado Springs, CO 47. Salt Lake City, UT Don't see your city?Refinish a Dining Table & Chairs How To: Refinish a Dining Table & Chairs Project: Refinish Dining Table and ChairsTime: Hands on time of 2.5 hours per chair and 5 hours for the table. Drying time I allowed overnight for stripped wood, overnight for 2 coats of stain, and over night for 2 coats of varnish. The set was allowed to cure for a week before using it. Total hands-on time: approximately 17.5 hours.
Cost: $100 for stripper, stain, varnish and tools, with an additional $50 for covering the chair seats. Anita sent us in an excellent record of her DIY dining set project last year as her January Jumpstart entry. She called it the "Dumpster Diva Dining Set" and the results were very impressive. We're bringing it back to the main page today as a "How To" to share her wisdom with any readers who are considering a refinishing project for their "February Jumpstart" this month... Anita says: "After years of watching DIY shows (with the Furniture Guys being one of my favorites), I knew this wasn't a difficult project. Still, I did Google refinishing projects, just too make sure I had my plan in place." Our favorite part of her instructions? Making a celebratory cheesecake at the end! Tell us the tools and resources you used for the project:Heavy duty chemical resistant gloves1.5 gallons stripper2 qts stripped wood cleanerExtra fine steel woolFlat stripper toolNylon brushDisposable paint trayWood glueWood fillerInexpensive sponge applicators1 qt stain (Minwax's new color: Gunstock)1 qt polyurethane finish (interior, satin)3 yards vinyl seat covering5 upholstery sponges things
Power screwdriverOld shower curtainStaple gun and staplesHammerPaper towelsGogglesFavorite long sleeved work shirtComfy work jeansBaseball capCrummy gym shoes & socks Share step by step instructions for how you completed the project: 1) Found INCREDIBLE dining set in nearby dumpster, complete with leaf and 5 chairs (one for EACH member of the family!!!). Convinced husband that nobody who's anybody will care if they see him loading it into minivan.2) Geared up with clothes that covered me head to toe and donned protective eye gear. Stripper is not difficult to use, but it can be very dangerous if you splash it onto your skin or worse yet, into your eyes.3) Removed the seats to the chairs. Corralled the screws in a plastic baggy.4) Started by applying the stripper to one chair. Used the wait time to start in on a second chair. Using the flat stripper tool, nylon brush and steel wool, I removed the bubbled up layers of old finish. Paper towels were a convenient way to clean off my tools.
Once the wood was stripped, I used a stripped wood cleaner and extra fine steel wool to quickly rinse away any stripper residue. Everything was allowed to dry at least overnight before the next step.5) Any little edges that needed help were either glued or filled in with wood filler, and allowed to cure according to package directions.6) The most exciting step was adding the color back into the dining set. Two coats of Gunstock color, applied with a sponge applicator made my heart sing.7) With an afternoon free of wind, I was able to apply a coat of polyurethane to the project. The next day, after a light sanding, everything got a second coat and was allowed to cure for 1 week.8) In the meanwhile, I was dismayed to find that the sample of vintage red colored vinyl I had my heart set upon had been discontinued by the store. So, until I can track it down, I went to plan B: black vinyl. With three kids and high traffic, these seats will need to withstand a lot of washing! After cutting the pads and cloth, and staple gun in hand, I carefully stapled the two to the wooden seat bottoms and screwed them back into place on the chairs.9) Made cheesecake to celebrate (recipe inside cream cheese box).
When you find a piece of wood furniture that needs a little love, it's really tempting to just fork over the cash and take it home as your next pet project. But wait, says woodworking expert Teri Masaschi, author of Foolproof Wood Finishing: For Those Who Love to Build & Hate to Finish. There are some things you need to consider first before you decide to refinish. "Beware of things that are painted," Masaschi says. "There's usually a reason for that." Paint can hide a multitude of sins, including burns, missing veneer and water stains. "You're far better off buying something that has old dirty varnish on it that just needs to be stripped," she says. "It's clear, you can see through it to whatever's underneath, and stripping old finish is really easy — it typically comes right off with products you can buy at the hardware store." Look for signs that the piece was made before 1950, maybe even 1960. "That’s when particleboard and laminate surfaces and cutting corners came along," Masaschi says.
Generally, even mass-produced furniture from before 1960 is sturdier and better made than today's cheap furniture — your find doesn't have to have antique value to be a great vintage piece that will give you years of service. Still, you should be careful with really old pieces, mostly those made before 1850, because refinishing them yourself can hurt their value. If you have any questions at all about the value of your piece, consult an expert before you get started. Learn what details to look for when assessing the age and quality of your piece. The next thing you need to do is give the piece what Masaschi calls "the rickety test." Put your hands on it, rock it back and forth, and test the drawers, if there are any, to see how much swaying is going on. If the piece isn't sturdy, you'll probably have to take it apart and re-glue it using clamps, and not everyone has the skill for that — or the workspace, for that matter. If you need an expert to re-glue your piece for you, expect to pay based on how complicated the piece is.
"It takes time to knock the piece apart and completely remove the old glue and start over," Masaschi says. "Re-gluing a chest of three drawers could easily cost $350 to $400." When a piece has been neglected for decades, it’s tough to tell what it will look like once it’s refinished. Although the next photo isn't the same chest, it could be: it's a fully refinished manufactured oak dresser from 1910. To get an idea of what your piece will look like refinished, find a protected spot where the original wood is visible, such as the back of a solid-wood drawer front, underneath the top surface of a chest of drawers, or the backside of a leaf in a drop-leaf table. Make sure that you like the look of the grain and that you understand what color you’ll come out with in the end—old wood often finishes much darker than newly milled wood. Here are the characteristics of several common types of wood on older furniture pieces: Cherry is a very smooth wood with a mild grain that can be stained a variety of colors.
“But if it’s 100 years old and you’ve stripped it, it’s going to be very dark,” Masaschi says. “Walnut has a more lively grain than cherry or maple,” Masaschi says, “but it’s one of the few wood types that actually gets lighter over the years.” The natural rich brown color limits the range of tones you can achieve with stain. “With old mahogany, there’s no way around it — it’s going to be very reddish,” Masaschi says. “You can go reddish red or brownish red, but you’ll never get anything else out of it.” Most old pine pieces were painted right away, so it’s rare that you’ll come across one you’ll want to strip and refinish. But if you do, expect a honey brown color that’s darker than new pine. Maple pieces made from the 1890s through the 1920s are often a beautiful figured bird’s eye or tiger maple and will have a strong yellow tone if you refinish. Plain maple from the 1960s, which was often stained an orangey color, can be stripped and made more modern with a light brown stain.
Oak: the staple wood of Victorian furniture. “Old furniture is often made of quarter-sawn oak with bold flecking in it,” Masaschi says. “If you refinish it, you’ll get that really beautiful old tiger oak grain that’s golden in color.” Make sure you're prepared for the level of involvement it will entail to restore the piece to its former glory. Here are some signs that your project may require extra steps or advanced techniques: It features deeply carved or applied filigree. "It's usually very time-consuming to strip out the old finish from all the nooks and crannies, and refinishing it will also be very tricky," Teri says. Different parts of the piece need different applications. For example, a chair with ornate sides or slats may need a delicate touch on the ornamental parts, but multiple coats of polyurethane on the arms so they'll be durable. It has slats or spindles set close together. "To strip that off and refinish it, you almost have to use a spray gun," Teri says.