The Case Of The Sticky Table

The kitchen table set we bought following our housefire in March 2007 HAD to be square (to fit in the kitchen) and HAD to have 8 chairs (because there are 8 people in our family) ....

And finding such a set was difficult. We called or visited every furniture store within a 2 hour drive, and spent hours searching the internet. And finally we found this table set in a furniture store in the next town.

So, we found one, and we liked it. Until we used it those first few nights. It was then that we noticed that the finish on the tabletop and the actual seats of the chairs was eternally sticky.

Because we were dealing with all of the chaos after the fire, such a "minor" detail seemed unimportant, and quite honestly was forgotten unless we were sitting AT the table for a meal.

And so we tried everything .... but no matter how much we scrubbed and scoured, and regardless of what we used to clean (water, cleaners, etc) .... it was STICKY.

So, last weekend, after nearly 1 1/2 years of dealing with the Sticky Table .... we stripped the finish off all eight chairs and the table.


And then we sanded every single surface to ensure to had removed every last smidge of the defective sealer.
After the sanding, we primed the whole set with a good quality primer (the wood was not very pretty, so we opted for painting rather than staining) ....

Next came the Family Vote --- the table must be painted --- what color shall we paint it ??

And on Friday, DadToCherubs took the whole set to be professionally painted by a dear friend ...

So ... stay tuned ...