Dining Room Table

Duncan Phyfe Dining Table

A large dining room table is one of the most challenging of all furniture restoration jobs, due to the sheer size of the project. Tables are large, heavy and difficult to transport, not to mention all that surface takes a while to strip, sand and refinish. That's why tables are amongst the highest price items when it comes to refinishing cost, but personally, I still prefer a large table to a set of chairs with spindles! Don't get me started on spindles. They're lovely, indeed, but they require a LOT of patience and time.

This lovely mahogany dining room table was quite large to begin with, plus it had two 12" leaves that also needed refinishing. This table had a few surface scratches, luckily they weren't too deep so I was able to sand them away, leaving the table's surface as good as new and ready to accept the stain, for which I chose mahogany, to match the wood. Once restored to its former beauty, this table took its place in the dining room, ready to serve up many family meals for years to come.

Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Set

Table Before Refinishing

Table After Refinishing

Lots of photos for this job! A lovely woman from Madison Heights had acquired this mid-century modern dining table and chairs at a church rummage sale. She didn't want to tackle the refinish and re-upholstery job herself, so she called me. After she brought the set over, I was excited to get to work.

This was indeed a unique table and after a few hours of sanding, it proved to be quite the challenge. I decided to research it because I'd never seen anything quite like it. Lo and behold, it was a stranded bamboo table top!

Captain Chair Before

Captain Chair After

Out of curiosity, I researched the hardness of wood. As most people know, oak is among one of the hardest of woods, but on a scale of 0-5, oak ranks only 3.4 on the hardness scale, whereas bamboo ranks an astounding 4.7! "Ah," I thought, that's why it took so long to strip and sand this incredible surface. Four days later and it was finally ready to be refinished. I used a "natural" stain and three coats of polyurethane.

She didn't want the chairs refinished, only cleaned, so I used a cleaner specifically for wood and hand-polished each chair. The cushions were another story. The original cushions were, well, ugly. The fabric was typical of a 1950's decor, scratchy and quite uncomfortable. That could be because there was simply nothing left of the once-soft foam rubber bits. They had completely disintegrated into a substance resembling yellow-green dust. I'm so glad I removed them outside!

Seat Cushion After

Seat Cushion Before

After the fabric was removed, I peeled away the former "cushioned" seats with a large putty knife to separate them from the wood base, then scraped the powdery substance into the trash. The very worst seat crumbled so bad, it was all powder! One of the seat bottoms had to be replaced with new plywood because it was cracked and anyone other than a five-year-old would have eventually landed on the floor.

Chair Before

Chair After

Once all that was accomplished, I completed took apart the old seat cushions and used them as templates for the new seats. (I'm glad I did as seats tend to be slightly varied in size.) It was a long, tedious task to be sure, but well worth it as the new seats fit perfectly. I ended up surprising the customer by adding a corded edge, original to the first seat cushion. This not only made the edge look better, it gave the seats a defined, linear finish and wasn't too difficult to incorporate into the fabric layout.

My customer was very satisfied with the dining set and I must say, it looks terrific in her kitchen (see photo below.) I hope she enjoys this unique dining room set for many years to come.

Table and Chairs at Customer's Home