DIY old table repair

Probably, many have an old rare table somewhere in the closet or in the attic, which the hand does not rise to throw away. In this article, we will try to convince you not to throw it away, but to give a new life. Moreover, this is relevant in our time, when there is a continuous high cost. It is much cheaper to do a table repair with your own hands and get an exclusive designer item, which will surprise all your friends when you look at it.

Restoration of furniture is a rather exciting process and, if desired, anyone can try it.

We will describe the restoration of the table using the example of a small table, which you see in the photo above.

Before starting repair work, you need to stock up on the following tools and materials:

• Hammer
• Screwdriver
• Pliers
• Sandpaper of different types of grain;
• Brushes;
• Varnish or paint;
• Impregnation for wood;
• Wood putty;
• Rubber spatula;
• Joiner's glue or PVA glue;
• Veneer.

We examine the table and determine which defects are present on the product. It can be:

• scratches and dents
• erased varnish,
• damaged legs that wobble.

If the legs are very loose, it is better to disassemble the table and carry out further restoration disassembled.

The purpose of this process is to remove the old paintwork and prepare the table for subsequent refinishing.

For sanding, we need a sandpaper. We begin to grind the product with a coarse-grained sandpaper, we go in a circular motion along the entire table: along the table top, legs and the side belt.

Further, for better removal of old varnish and leveling the surface, you can use a finer sandpaper. If you have a sander, the sanding process will be much faster.

When sanding, it is important not to overdo it or sand down holes.

If the table is made of natural wood, it is better to treat it with a special impregnation, which will protect it from pests and diseases.

Leave the parts to dry for a while. Then we cover all the cracks with putty. After complete drying, we grind the putty again with a fine sandpaper

If the table is made of chipboard, you need to inspect the table top and determine if there are bubbles on the surface. If there is, then the veneer is peeling.

Such a defect can be corrected by making an incision on the surface of the bubble with a thin knife. After that, you need to apply glue with a syringe into the hole. Then we take a regular iron and iron the surface of the table until the veneer sticks.

Let's start painting. We take paint or varnish, depending on your taste, brush and paint. You may need to paint in two or three coats.

This is determined in the course of restoration work, depending on what kind of appearance we want to get. Let the paint dry well.

When all the parts are well dry, we proceed to the assembly of the product.

We leave the assembled furniture until the glue is completely dry and the parts set.

So we examined the main stages of the restoration of a wooden table. We wish you to try to do the repair yourself and be satisfied with the result.

Sooner or later the moment comes when the wooden table loses its former attractiveness. Sending it to gather dust in the attic or throwing it away altogether is not the right way out. The best way out of this situation is to restore the old table.

Furniture restoration is a fun process that allows you to significantly save on the purchase of new furniture

This is especially true when the product is made of expensive wood species. In such circumstances, it will be much more profitable to restore the table than to buy a new expensive table or replace the old table with a lower quality product. In addition, antique models are appreciated more and more over time, and it is likely that in a few years a refurbished table will greatly increase in value.

Round folding table made of wood before and after DIY restoration

For many, the ancient table in the house is not just a piece of furniture, but also a memory of ancestors, a family heirloom and a symbol of long-term stability. By restoring a wooden table, you can give it a second life and preserve it as part of family history.

Chic table with carved legs with restored top

The best option to do this is to restore the wooden table with your own hands. Repairing the table will give a lot of positive impressions and will allow you to get a unique thing that no one else will have.

Decoupage will allow you not only to budget and quickly transform the table, but also to stylize it, for example, under Shabby chic

Strong wooden things last a long time, but sometimes they lose their presentable appearance. This problem can be easily fixed by performing a table repair. Do-it-yourself table restoration will help save the family budget, since the workshops ask for a high price for such work.

Beautiful tables take on new life after restoration

Thus, summing up all of the above, we can highlight the following advantages of restoring a wooden table with your own hands:

• saving the budget;
• the second life of the old table;
• preservation of family heirlooms;
• creation of unique furniture;
• low costs for table repair;
• high quality and durable product.

The process of restoring an old table is painstaking, but within the power of any person who has even small skills in working with wood and modest knowledge in the field of furniture design. With the help of available tools and small material costs, you can give an outdated table a fresh and presentable look.

Mosaic table decor from broken plates - an unusual budget solution for restoration

The following tools are used to restore wooden tables:

Materials and tools for restoration

In order to make the restoration of the table, you will need the following materials:

• putty;
• special products for wood;
• varnish;
• dye;
• glue;
• if necessary, a wooden canvas.

The wooden table after staining has taken on a completely different look

There are several ways to repair a wooden table. The most popular is the method based on painting the table surface with paint and then applying varnish.

To give the table a more spectacular look, it can be painted not as a whole, but only in individual parts

The second most common is the pasting of furniture with self-adhesive film. This method turns out to be the cheapest, but at the same time it allows you to hide existing defects in furniture and transform the appearance of the product for the better.

The simplest and most beautiful option for decorating an old table that does not require fiddling with paints is gluing a film

An original technique in furniture restoration is tiling on the table surface. This method will allow the product to maintain its beautiful appearance for a long time, since it will not be afraid of moisture and high temperature.

Table decoration with ceramic tiles in separate fragments

Work on the restoration of the table should be started with a thorough examination of the product for defects. The best option would be to disassemble the furniture into parts, clean it from dirt, and then reassemble it.

We carefully inspect all fasteners in the structure and defects of the countertop and repair parts

If breakdowns were found, then they should be eliminated.If it is impossible to repair one of the parts, it should be replaced with a new one, prepared independently or made to order.

We remove the old coating with a grinder or manually

Next, you need to remove the old varnish. For this, the product is sanded. This can be done with a grinder, and in the absence of one - with skins of varying degrees of hardness.

After grinding, we thoroughly clean the table from dust and seal up cracks and chips

If the tabletop does not have severe damage, then you can not hide the natural beauty of the wood and cover it with a stain and then varnish.

It is very important to polish the wood along the grain, otherwise hard-to-remove defects may occur. At the end of the treatment, it is necessary to clean the surface with sandpaper, and then remove all dust from the furniture. After that, you need to degrease the surface of the table using special solvents, alcohol or acetone. If any parts of the product have chips, cracks or scratches, then it is necessary to putty them, and to connect the breaks with glue.

The table can be primed in 1-2 layers using a small sponge roller, while each layer should dry completely

When the primer is dry, sand the countertop again with a medium grit sandpaper or sanding sponge.

Then the stage of grinding and degreasing the furniture surface should be carried out again. If the table is made of natural wood, then it is advisable to protect it from pests and diseases. For this, the product is impregnated with a suitable agent.

If the table is made of natural wood, it is better to treat it with a special impregnation, which will protect it from pests and diseases.

A polished dining table can be restored by sanding the surface and applying a new layer of decorative lacquer to it.

The next step is varnishing the wood parts. If you need to mask some defects or just want to change the color of the old table, then before applying varnish, you can use paint. Changing the shade of furniture can also be achieved using not transparent, but colored varnish. After all the parts have dried well, you need to assemble the product.

The paint should be applied in 2 thin layers, and then protect the table surface with varnish

Decor of an old table using decoupage technique

The final stage in the restoration of a wooden table is decoration. You can again take up the brush and, using various stencils or masking tape, apply an applique to the table surface.

Painting the table through tulle should be done over the base layer with a pigment of a contrasting color

For those who can draw well, the image of their own masterpiece on furniture, which will remain for many years, is suitable.

A table with art painting will perfectly complement the interior in ethnic or rustic style

The pattern on the countertops can also be created using mosaics or beading. The latter is used in work when the goal is to imitate one of the noble metals - gold, silver or bronze.

Create a painting from small fragments on the surface of the table

Potal (gilding) is a wonderful decoration for a table in a classic style

An old table in your home is more than just a piece of furniture. In a sense, this is a story, a memory of ancestors, a symbol of the long-term stability of the home.

The old table can be restored, giving it a second life, and saving yourself a lot of money to buy a new table.

The ideal balance between careful attention to the history of one's own family and the needs of everyday household comfort is provided by the restoration of the table with your own hands. Indeed, you should not rush to throw away an old table found in the attic - a good renovation can breathe a second life into a dilapidated object, saving its owner's money for buying new furniture.

Perhaps such a renovation will also give new aesthetic sensations at the sight of unusual shapes and silhouettes, will delight you with the pleasant warm texture of solid wood, cleaned of dirt and layers of outdated finishes.

But before proceeding to the description of the course of restoration work, let's see how you can perform them in the best quality.

For work on restoring and updating the old table with your own hands, it is recommended to stock up on tools and materials from the following list:

Hand tools for restoration.

• electric drill, wood drills;
• a set of chisels;
• face planer;
• hammer;
• nail puller;
• screwdrivers (flat and Phillips);
• clamps;
• jigsaw (manual or electric);
• pliers and round nose pliers;
• hacksaws (for wood and metal);
• assembly knife;
• a set of files;
• measuring devices (ruler, square, tape measure);
• felt polish;
• set of brushes;
• joiner's glue;
• acrylic varnish, stain.

The restoration begins with the removal of old varnish and paint.

Before proceeding with the implementation of this plan, it is necessary to carefully examine the entire table and its most hidden corners and crevices. This is done in order to correctly assess the general technical condition of the subject and plan the total amount of work.

Almost any cardinal table restoration begins with its disassembly. As a rule, the older the object, the more of its details require serious instrumental intervention. In some cases (if, for example, the countertop has warped heavily due to very long-term use), it is simply pointless to restore certain parts - it will turn out to be too expensive and ineffective.

Then it is better either to independently make a product that is completely out of order, or to order a part from specialists on the side. If the damage from time and from improper storage turned out to be not so destructive, then the old structure should be carefully strengthened. This means, in particular, that the existing not very strong joints must be tightened, and strongly loosened joints must be disassembled, then cleaned and re-twisted or glued.

It has been noticed that in furniture one of the most affected components over time is the paintwork.

The varnish is ripped off the table to the very base.

Therefore, often, when the renovation of an old wooden table begins, you have to deal with peeling off the old paint (which may turn out to be laid in several layers) from the table surfaces.

If there are too thick coatings or large areas of damaged surface, it is recommended to use a drill with a metal brush attachment or a sander to remove paint. After the old paint has been completely removed, the next stage of preparation is carried out.

It consists in degreasing the cleaned surface. This can be done by carefully wiping the wooden parts with a soft cloth soaked in special solvents suitable for this coating, alcohol or acetone. At the same time, obvious defects are sanded with emery paper or a grinder.

However, old damage (potholes, scratches, chips, etc.) cannot always be removed by grinding. High-quality restoration presupposes the obligatory putty of the surfaces of the old table. It should not be forgotten that after the putty has completely dried, all surfaces to be treated must be sanded well again.

If possible, it is advisable to process the old wooden parts separately, after carefully separating the tabletop and underframe. The table top is sanded again, after which it is painted with a paint suitable for furniture and covered with 2-3 layers of colorless varnish. This operation is carried out without haste, with keeping each layer of paint and varnish until they are completely dry.

in the presence of faults, these places are glued and pressed tightly against each other with a clamp.

The other part of the table - the underframe - often requires even more attention than the tabletop. After many years of operation, it can have cracks in parts and serious fractures. If the owner of such a rarity nevertheless decides to restore it, then he should first disconnect the legs from the underframe using the appropriate tools.

Fracture points for further connection of the dispersed parts must be glued. Then, using clamps, these parts are pressed tightly against each other. Sometimes, for better tightening of the cracked parts to each other, you can use self-tapping screws, which come in handy in inconvenient places where it is difficult or impossible to install a clamp.

After the glue has dried (after about 12-15 hours), the self-tapping screws are removed from the wooden elements of the table. The tabletop and underframe are connected to each other either with glue or by providing a removable connection, which will be very useful in small apartments.

The restoration of the table ends with varnishing of the wood details. But before that, they must be opened with a stain. To avoid drips, it is better to do this with a piece of soft foam rubber. After the stain has dried, the wooden surfaces of the table are primed with a transparent varnish (primer) and lightly treated with a thin sandpaper.

When updating tables, you should always take into account their purpose and where they will be located in the future:

The table for the nursery can be decorated with photographs and drawings.

1. Children's table. It is recommended to glue clippings from bright glossy magazines or children's pictures to its surface after removing old paint from the countertop and sanding it. Then all this is covered with 4 layers of acrylic varnish.
2. Restoration of the dressing table. An original solution would be to remake an old toiletry table for a sink stand. A hole is cut in the middle of the table so that a sink fits into it, but without significant protrusions above the surface of the table. Ceramic tiles can be glued to the remaining space on the countertop.
3. Kitchen table. You can paint an old piece of furniture with some bright paint. A film is glued to the painted countertop, which, for example, imitates beautiful lace. At the same time, the film can not be glued to the table top, but attached from below with special brackets.
4. Updating the writing desk. You can cover the old countertop with some eye-catching wallpaper. To give the furniture freshness and solidity, wallpapers that imitate the texture of wood of any valuable species are well suited. To give the composition a sense of integrity and completeness, the table legs can be varnished in wood tones.
5. Coffee table. With this option, a bright pattern with geometric elements will be in good harmony. It is better to choose some dull paint for the background, which is recommended to be applied to the countertop with a spray gun. The geometric pattern is applied to the dry painted surface with a brush or special masking tape. Fragments between stripes can be filled with paints of bright colors.

The kitchen table can be decorated using decoupage technique.

If the table legs are detached from the underframe, it is worthwhile to mark in advance exactly where the particular leg was. Install each leg in the place where it was before the repair.

Covering the table with a white primer, one must be prepared for the fact that then almost all defects will become visible on its surfaces.

To provide furniture surfaces with maximum strength, the lacquer coating must have at least 3 layers made with a paint roller, 5 layers with a spray gun and 10 layers with a cotton swab.

Sand a wooden countertop along the grain of the wood.If you do this across the grain, there will be noticeable small risks on the countertop.