What exactly is ‘Hampton’s style?’ Honestly, I don’t think I’d know even if I spent a month in the Hampton’s taking in as much of the style as humanly possible. But Wifey is keen on this particular aesthetic so it’s time for Operation: restore dining table by going wild over a few weekends with the sander and a paintbrush..
The table in question
When we first moved to Albury NSW, our lovely in-laws out Lavington way spied this table and chairs set on Facebook classifieds as a possible replacement for the one we sold before we arrived. Then they went and bought it as a house warming present for us anyway because it was a steal at $20 and Trev could easily bring it over in the back of his Colorado.
Only he apologised when he got it, not realising that things were in a little rougher condition than first expected – the chairs were a little loose and rickety while the table itself had seen a fair few craft days, not to mention it looked like someone had set off a funeral pyre in the middle of it for some reason.
The chairs were an easy fix – I pulled them apart and then re-glued them back with some left over Titebond I bought from eBay to repair a guitar once upon a day. A day spent drying and they were back to rock solidness in no time (seriously, it’s a great glue). As for the table, well nothing a table cloth couldn’t fix when we needed it to be presentable.
The trouble was that over the last couple of years whatever coating was on the top became a little.. gluey. Like the original owners coated it in vegetable oil and figured well it’s cheap and cheerful and that’ll do just fine, soon we found that things started to stick to various places. Things like paper, food stuffs and the occasional house guest.
‘I guess I’ll put an orbital sander on the shopping list then.’ I mused, figuring I’d get to this sometime. Or eventually, whichever came first. I even put it on my master shopping list to buy when a bargain one popped up.
Only Wifey decided this weekend was as good as any and bought one anyway.
Maybe I should write ‘Lexus IS250 in excellent nick’ on that list and see what happens next..
Operation restore dining table: the plan
Part of this years plan of improving what we’ve got, this idea is pretty simple really, sand the top and reseal it with something that doesn’t try to trap the unwary as well as paint the legs white so Wifey can pretend to live in the Hamptons. It probably won’t match the rest of the ‘un-Hamptonsish’ decor we have unless that’s her ultimate plan, start with the table and then paint everything else Hampton shade as we go.
Rather than try and wrestle this heavy bastard out into the carport myself, I decided to save my back and dismantle it first. And by that I mean loosening up all the leg support bolts and teaching my daughter how to use a basic drill with socket attatchment.
She’d seen me cracking the bolts with a socket set and then said ‘Dad, can I have a go?’ and was doing quite well until I showed her the drill and that was it, she was having a great time pulling out bolts left right and centre and before we knew it, every leg was off and marched out to the carport.
Just on the drill side of things, once upon a time I would have never championed the Ozito (Bunnings) brand. Back when they were all grey plastic they were cheap and nasty and the battery life on their power tools lasted roughly the length of a cup of coffee. Now that the X Power stuff has been released, it’s streets ahead of what they had. I bought this for $99 a few years ago and it’s been brilliant, especially taking the work out of unscrewing things and bolting them back together including projects like this and stuff on the car. For basic household projects and general time saving, it’s been one of the best buys ever and while I don’t think this particular model is still available, there’s plenty just like it in the Ozito brand. Plus the battery goes forever which is a bonus.
(Socket drill adapter was also from Bunnings – just a cheapie while the socket came from a set from Supercheap Auto bought a while back to swap out a busted turbo.) I love my tools but I don’t think I’ll ever have enough.
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