Transforming A Bargain Picnic Table

Sometimes when you are shopping on Craig’s List, the saying holds true…if you snooze, you lose. 

Then again, sometimes if you snooze, you get a better deal!

I’ve always wanted a big picnic table.  So I began to look on Craig’s List. 

For three weeks, I hemmed and hawed about calling an ad I had found.  It was a full size picnic table listed for $80.  It was a nice picnic table, with fresh paint. And cheaper than new.  But still more than I wanted to pay.  By the time I decided to call, the table was gone.

So I began to look again.  And found this. 

The table was identical.  Minus the fresh paint.  And in kind of rough shape.  But only $40. Hmm, I thought, I can work with that! 

So we picked it up. 

I say picked it up like it was as easy as pie.  In reality, my husband and the owner had to bust their humps tumbling the thing over a four-foot high chain link fence to get it out of the their back yard.

Then they had to haul it all the way around the house to our waiting trailer.  This table is HEAVY!  I didn’t take a picture of the moving process for fear my husband would have left it there.  Lol!  But trust me, it would have made a great picture/movie!  (I’m so glad my husband loves me!)

Once we got it home, I flipped it over and tightening the loose screws.  Then I took a steel brush to the metal legs to remove flaking paint and some of the rust.  It was pretty bad. 

After wiping it down, I used one of my favorite products, a $4.99 can of Rust Reformer, by Rustoleum.  Then, I top-coated the legs with a Rustoleum glossy black, flipped it back over, and sanded the rough edges of the boards. 

I keep saying flipped like I am some kind of super hero capable of lifting massive objects.  Really, when I say I flipped it, I mean me and all my boys plus their friend and his mom heaved with all our might to roll it over!  Yes, did I say it’s HEAVY?!

All that was left to do was to pick a color to paint the table top and benches. 

I was thinking barn red.  My husband was thinking forest green.  My friend voted stain.   

Decisions.  Decisions.  Decisions.

Which would you choose??

In the end, my friend convinced me that paint would only flake eventually, and that stain was best.  So stain it was.

  

And here is my new picnic table!  I lOVE that it is a full size table, and that the legs don’t get in the way of sliding in from the end.   

Now, we’ll be able to have company for a picnic without scrounging around for mismatched tables and chairs to seat everyone. 

And the fact that it was only $40 makes me even happier! 

To see other do-it-yourself projects, visit A Soft Place To Land.  Kimba is having a whole meme of DIY ideas!