Have You Ever Restained Your End Tables?

I have restrained and also painted over all kids of furniture. Yes they look great. If you like the basic form and shape of the piece, then refinishing it should do the trick (assuming its done well and your husband has an artistic touch and does not chose a horrible shade). But if you don't even like the lines of the table (shape, proportion), then nothing will fix it to your liking. I have salvaged and repurposed all kinds of older solid wood furniture because most new furniture is constructed so badly. I'd rather refinish something that was constructed with high quality furniture specifications (dove tail joints, no melamine, etc) than buy furniture that was constructed poorly.

(that said, painting is way easier than refinishing in wood stain. If you use a chalk paint, you won't even have to prep or sand the piece before hand. But this it better for an antiqued look where dings and nicks are considered character and not flaws)

I've re-stained a foot stool, not end tables. From what I understand there are two ways of doing it.

1. The easier way is you get a stain that you can ostensibly use to paint over the current finish. I think it is called a gel. It can work alright with a piece of furniture that is in good shape, but might pool in the dings, knicks and recesses if you aren't very careful. Also, at the time that I was considering it, the product would end up a little thick and a little tacky, so on a hot humid day, it wasn't very pleasant to the touch.

2. you strip the current finish, sand down imperfections, and re-stain and re-seal it.

I say, if you have the money for the materials, and the time and patience for the process, by all means give it a try. As it is, you are planning to junk them.

Best,
F. B.

IF they are good wood, like oak, maple, cherry, and not a veneer finish, they can be stripped, sanded and re-stained beautifully. If you like a natural finish of the wood, you can use natural color of wood with clear finsh. Minwax products found at any home improvement store are easy to use and provide good finishes.

Other finishes can be cleaned and painted. If there are "oily" stains you might need a primer before painting. If you are planning to get rid of them anyway, would be worth a try for the experience and you may love them.

If it's real wood and you like the shape of the pieces, then he should give it a try. However, restaining a piece of furniture is time consuming and a bit of an art to get a well done end result. Any nicks, dings, gouges, scratches and so on will need to be filled and/or sanded because stain won't make those go away. The steps are more or less: degloss to remove the shiny finish/clean the surface, sand down to bare wood and to remove light surface damage, fill in any larger surface damage with wood putty/filler, resand to get a smooth finish, cheese cloth wipe to remove sanding residue, apply chosen stain according to the manufacturer's instructions which will involve multiple staining and protecting steps. Good luck.

We found some wood twin beds at Goodwill, really ugly. My hubby sanded them and finished them with a cherrywood color and they look great now!

Yes this is possible, but not simply by painting stain over stain. But you can simply paint over stain, as long as the surface has been cleaned.