The dining chairs are on hold; I’ll give them their third coat of paint tomorrow. Today I needed to get cracking on the matching table.
My horse, Jasper, is poorly at the moment – he has Cauda Equina Syndrome (a rare neurological disorder) and gets urinary infections from time to time. He had colic last night and was struggling to pee. I decided to work down the paddock today, so that I could keep my eye on him. The paddock has a large field shelter and one of the sections is gated, so I started work on the dining table down there. The paddock doesn’t have an electrical supply, so I hand sanded some of the dining room table, but had to give up when I ran out of 2 things – steam and sand paper!
I decided to bring the table home and finish off the course grain sanding with my electric sander. Here it is, part way through the first sanding.
By dusk the initial sanding was finished and tomorrow it will be sanded again with a fine grade paper to give a smooth finish. The base is going to be painted and that was sanded and primed today. I wanted to get the priming finished as there needs to be several hours drying time between coats and I really do need to crack on with the painting of the table tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get 2 coats done tomorrow, and the third coat will be done on Sunday morning. Here is the base, freshly primed.
I’m not planning on staining the table top – it’s quite a nice colour as is, but I have yet to decide whether to finish it with wax or linseed oil. I’ll have a better idea which will be best once it’s been fine sanded and wiped down.
So, hopefully by Sunday afternoon (weather permitting), I’ll have pics of the finished set.
Post Script: Well, I got up ultra early Saturday morning and got the first coat of paint on the refectory table base, and managed to get 3 coats on before dusk (by the skin of my teeth), whilst doing the final coat on the 6 chairs. The weather forecast was so poor for Sunday, that I really needed to get some pictures asap – the paint was still tacky when I (carefully!) took the pictures (but I still managed to get paint in my hair AGAIN).
So, here it is. Not quite finished; it needs waxing, but the paint needs to cure a little first. I opted for a clear wax finish to the table top; linseed may have looked a little heavy and I quite liked the pale oak as it was, so went for the natural look.
I’m pleased with the upholstery fabric – the French menus are a bit groovy and make a change from floral designs.
Not sure what to paint next. I usually have a few items on the go at once, but large dining sets take such a long time to complete, that I tend to work on them exclusively. I have a very nice bureau, but also have a couple more dining sets to refurb. I’ll see what takes my fancy tomorrow.