{Refinishing Furniture} Toddler Play Table

Mom has told you before that she and I share a love of color. We also share a love of giving old, beat up furniture a second chance. A sweet friend gave me this little toddler table and set of four chairs for Knox with the warning that it needed a LOT of love. It's been sitting in the shop ever since waiting to be refinished. Now that Knox is old enough to actually use it, I decided it was time to give it the love it deserved!

My wonderful loving husband lets me use his giant shop as a storage building/project space/whatever else I need to use it for with no little complaint. I typically have at least one project going at all times, so you can imagine that he doesn't get to use his shop for what it was designed for very often. Have I mentioned how wonderful he is?

Mom's Spring 2013 Paint Palette got me excited to use some fun new colors. I wanted it to be very boyish, since Knox is definitely ALL boy. I chose her Blue Jayed Shoes, which is a rich true blue, for the table and Oh, Deer, a wonderful neutral, for the chairs.

I think my very favorite thing about using Mom's chalk finish paint is that it doesn't have to be perfect. I am no Picasso when it comes to painting. My ADD starts to kick in and I get bored with it pretty quickly. Using her paint, I can slap a coat on and immediately start the second coat since it dries so fast.

All in all, I probably spent about two hours working on the table and the one chair that I've finished. Here are the steps I took:

1. The top of the table had a lot of stickers on it and splintery pieces of wood that could easily get caught in Knox's hands, so I really took the time to sand the top well with a hand sander. I didn't even bother with the legs or the chairs because they were nice and smooth and clean and another great thing about chalk finish paint: You don't HAVE to sand at all! 

2. After I was finished sanding, I wiped the whole table down with a wet cloth to get rid of the dust. You can see what a difference 10 minutes of sanding makes!

3. I gave each piece two coats of paint. I used a small roller for the majority of the table. I went back with a small brush and filled in the places the roller couldn't fit. I used a large foam brush for the chair. (disclaimer: I use cheap foam brushes ALWAYS because I would rather put a fork in my eye than wash paint brushes.)

4. I busted my handy dandy sander back out and distressed the table and chair. I distressed the chair a little more heavily than the table because it was such a light color. Light color+toddler...I gave it an hour before it was filthy. So, I hit that problem head on and made sure the chair already looked worn and dirty, but in a good way! (a little note in distressing: the key is to think about where things would actually be worn. ie: the edges, the legs where they've been scuffed with shoes, where a plate would have been sitting every night, etc.)

5. I sealed both pieces with a soft, dark wax. This is the key to chalk finish paint! Pieces can be sealed with a clear wax or an aging wax. I chose an aging wax on these pieces because, again, a toddler is going to be using it. The wax brings out the wood tones that have been sanded back and really gives that vintage, aged finish.

6. After the wax had a little time to dry, I went back with a clean rag and wiped everything down really good to get any waxy residue off.

I still need to finish the other three chairs, but for now one chair is enough for Knox to stand in and fall face first out of sit in. He mostly uses the table as a climbing toy (safe, I know), but he does like to put his toys on it and play with them occasionally. I know he will enjoy it more and more as he gets older!

So next time you see an abused toddler table at a garage sale or resale shop, snag it and give it a little love! I think it is so much more meaningful to give our children things that our hearts have gone into than to go buy an overpriced version that, let's face it, is going to be ruined anyway. You can do it!

-tp.