Kitchen Table Makeover

The "new" table

Before we moved, our kitchen table was in pretty bad shape. I would do everything I could to hide the mess that it had become and I cringed every evening when I tried to scrape off the mess from the day. Table cloths could only do so much and never stayed put anyway.

Kitchen table before

It is a nice sturdy table from a discount furniture store but, it is basically laminated plywood, so sanding and refinishing was out of the question. And the finish was peeling off in messy flakes creating grooves and gouges in the surface, so we couldn't just paint it either, at least not the top.

Kitchen chairs prepped for paint

Buying a new table was not even close to being in the budget anytime soon, but I just could not take it any longer. I decided we had to do something. I had seen my hubby and brother-in-law build a counter top for a kitchen remodel, and wondered if it would be possible to use the same technique to recover our table top.

Oooh so nice, no flaking finish

 As it turns we could! I sanded and painted the chairs and legs of the table while my sweet man glued the laminate counter top material right over that ugly tabletop. He added a piece of wood to make a nice edge all around, cut the laminate to fit, and used the router to spiffy it up.

No marker yet has defeated this tabletop

 Now we have a table that comes clean easily and looks so much better. And when the time comes for a new one, this will be an excellent craft table, because nothing the kids put on this table sticks.