My Latest Free Finds for the New House

I've had pretty good luck with curbside finds these last few months. We needed a kitchen table and I bought a really awesome handcrafted table for $20 at an estate sale, but then I found this pine table with two matching chairs for free sitting outside the same house a week later. This one is a better fit for our oddly-shaped dinette area. The other table, which I will post about another day, is going to be either my husband's or my "office" desk.

Being about 33 wks pregnant at the time, I didn't think I could do anything with the table until well after the baby arrived. But the feeling of uselessness with home renovations struck and I stuck on my ventilator and went to work sanding and staining the table top. I sanded more than half the table before remembering to take a picture. My new palm sander was a birthday present from my husband this year. Oh how well he knows me!

Here's a closer shot of the stain that was previously on the table. It was already wearing off in a few areas and there were a few dark marks from whatever they had previously set on top.

The sander works wonders! Here it is all sanded down.

Brendan and I despise light stains and we wanted the table to look like a workshop table, a bit weathered with different variations in wood color. We knew this would work with the pine surface because you can never depend on the stain to come out even, especially when the table is not made of great quality wood in the first place. After 3 coats of Minwax Dark Walnut Stain and 3 coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly (with sanding in between), the table was perfect!

Unfortunately, the table is still sitting outside because there's no room for it in the house. But it should be moved in by this Wednesday. In the background you can see a few of my other free finds. A pallet and 3 wood chairs.

I was so happy to find the free chairs especially because the weekend before I found out I missed out on buying 3 similar chairs for $1 each. They reeked of cigarette smoke though and there was nicotine crusted on to the backs of the chairs. I've sanded them down as much as I can and scrubbed them down with vinegar 3 times now. They sat in the sun yesterday and they're MUCH MUCH better. They smell a bit more like wood now. 

Here's a disgusting picture of what it looks like after I sanded a small part of one of the chairs. See that? Not just dust from wood or stain, it's cigarette ash. BLECH!

The 3 chairs will go with the farmhouse dining table I bought a few months ago along with 3 other wooden chairs of a different style that I found at a garage sale for $10 each. All the chairs are getting painted different colors. Priming these stinky chairs with 2 layers should keep them from stinking of cigarettes.

So yes, I've successfully found free finds that I ACTUALLY needed! Not just junk! Eventually I'll post about the furniture I did spend money on for the new house, but that won't happen until renovations are done. One day...

Love the Beasts,

Emily