r evamped table

By Janet Hall-Frith, Kyogle, NSW.

My husband Michael received a bequest from his late Aunt Olive in the shape of a timber slatted table with metal legs and three similar chairs, all painted in mission brown.

They have sat in our gazebo for a few years and we used them for morning teas, lunches and so on. I enquired the age of the set from Michael’s mother Bernice as they originally belonged to her parents. Aunt Olive was Bernice’s sister. It turns out that they are approximately 40 to 50 years old. How amazing. They are such solid and well-made pieces of timber furniture and after this restoration project should last quite a few more years and maybe be handed down to the next generation sometime in the future.

I removed the old screws and laid the slats on a table in the order I removed them from the legs and sanded them with my lovely little electric sander which saves a lot of effort compared with using sandpaper. Then I chose the paint I wanted to use and wouldn’t you know it I had quite a lot left over from a previous project which I didn’t want to waste and it was a lovely bright orange. That would do nicely. I gave the slats three coats before I was completely happy with the finish, allowing it to dry thoroughly between coats.

Next step was to sand back the metal legs which was a little more tricky than the timber slats, so I used my little sander but had to finish off with sandpaper around the hard-to-reach places, which took much more time, but I wanted this to be a good job so I persevered.

I then chose to use black gloss spray paint; again, I had some left over from a previous project. I gave the legs two coats of the spray paint.

I bought some new screws in the same design as the old ones and my hubby very gladly lent me a hand to get it all back together and get the screws and nuts inserted and tightened.

Finally the finished article. I am very pleased with the outcome; you could say I am as pleased as punch. It’s cheery and still sturdy and ready for a cuppa or two to be had and has been saved from going to landfill. The only thing now is I have three of the chairs to restore; I can see that I am going to be busy in the near future! T