Awesome Great Finds

Hi everyone!
A couple weeks ago I scored big time on Craiglist. A nice pedestal table, two shelves and four of these beautiful chairs for free.
Most of them are OK, some scuffs here and there and the signs of good use is what they show.

Only one chair was in less than OK state, it looks like it was Fido's favorite. He marked it pretty well. :)  some of the rods on this chair were loose too.

I love their woven rush seats, they're all in good condition.

The pedestal table is also in overall good condition but the finish has to be freshened up.

The top shows lots of wear.

The two shelves are very heavy, I haven't decided how to use them, for now they're patiently waiting in the garage...

While I work on the chairs and table.

As a matter of fact, this other table had been sitting in the garage for a very long time and since new stuff arrived I had to decide what to do with it. I promised my sister in law this is going to be hers. So, I decided to begin working on it right away.

It looks like somebody try to fix it by applying extra lacquer, but it turned out all bumpy. :/

Well, the damaged chair was glued, I began sanding the table...

And I applied Citristrip to the antique table to remove all the layers of varnish it had.

Hey, applying that stuff was easy and the odor didn't even bother me, the table was all covered up and while waiting for the stuff to work I thought why not to apply it to the other table and the chairs... So easy!

Hmmm big mistake, the new acquisitions, chairs and round table, didn't need all that power. A simple sanding would've been easier than removing the chemical stripping. It took me a long time to get rid of that stuff and then I had to do some sanding anyways!

The part that irritated me the most was the Citristrip not working at removing all those layers of varnish the antique table had. :(

I continued working on the chairs and round table, perhaps on my next post I'll give you an update. I need to go and find what else might work better at removing all those layers on the old table.

Have you done this before? stripping an old table all the way to the wood? What worked for you?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

You can check the new look on the round pedestal table and chairs right HERE.

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