You can create a barn wood like look on a table top using Missouri Limestone Company chalk-based paint and a stain_sealer. I have a step-by-step tutorial here to show you how!

For previous TIP OF THE WEEK click here.

The tip of the week is a little late thanks to Thanksgiving holidays. One of my sons and his two sons ages 4 and 17 months came to visit the week before Thanksgiving so need I say more.

My tip of the week for the Thanksgiving holidays shows you how I created a barn wood look on a table top. Plus I get to share the final results of the farm table set.  This is one of those projects I sure wished I had #1 – a garage to work in and #2 – that my dining room was big enough for me to keep it.  I posted pics of the progress and that generated so much interest, I sold it the day I finished it, so others liked it, too.

I did manage to get some time in to finish the huge farm table set I started (hoping to finish before Thanksgiving) the day after so that wasn’t too bad.  It took a couple of mornings getting up at 4:30 am to work on it before the little ones were up.  I really needed to get it out of the basement before everyone got here so we could get to the bed.  I was thinking we might have to sleep on it.  It sure was big enough. LOL

TIP OF THE WEEK

How to create a barn wood look with paint and Varathane’swater-based stain and sealer (I call this my magic stain).  I love it!  I debated about keeping this as my secret weapon, but I can’t do that.  I’m an educator and I just have to share what I have learned myself.  Hence the name of our paint company….SharSum Paint, a play of words based on my name Sharon Sumner (Share Some – get it?)

But first, some before pics of the table and chairs.

The table and chairs were basically in pretty good shape.  We had to do some repair on some of the veneer under the table top and on the leaves and had to put the sliding mechanism back together, but this was a good sturdy set.

TIP #1:  Creating a barnwood type look on a table top.  I really didn’t know how this was going to turn out, so I did a practice piece and then decided to just go with it.  I really do love how it turned out and it is all due to my magic stain/sealer technique.

First, I gathered my supplies.  I used Missouri Limestone Paint Company’s chalk-based paint.  I needed Grannie’s Lace (an off white) Sunday Silver (a medium gray), French Roast (a dark brown) and Varathane water-based stain and sealer in Dark Walnut.

I painted the leaves and table first with the French Roast.  The pic shows a finished sample.

Next, I used Grannie’s Lace and dry-brushed over the French Roast.  Then, just a little of the Sunday Silver dry-brushed, and even less of French Roast again.  I then did a light wash of Grannie’s Lace.  I took dry paper towel and just started rubbing that wash in.  Sometimes I rubbed down to the French Roast and sometimes even harder down to the original finish.  The picture below shows the dry brushing.  UPDATE:  I did another table top after this (see pics at bottom of post).  I didn’t bother using the paper towel and rubbing it in.  Instead, I did a dry brush technique on the other colors (adding just a bit of water – not much) and tried to keep the brushing as straight as possible.)  It turned out as nice, if not better, with much less work.

The magic comes when I add the Varathane water-based stain and sealer.  I used Dark Walnut.  It somehow just blends everything all together and seals it at the same time.  You can see the white wash on the picture below.

The more coats you put on, the darker it becomes.  I used 3 coats on this table and leaves.  I very lightly sanded in between coats.  The result was a very smooth finish.  The sealer has a little shinier finish than I like, though, plus I always want to have a really durable surface on a table, so I added two coats of Varathane water-based satin polyurethane, which toned down the shine.  Every single time I would walk past the table top, I just had to admire it and feel the smoothness.  : )

So, there’s your tip of the week.  And now for the finished farm set.  By the way, we made a bench for this table out of 3 complimentary chairs.  Check it out on a previous tip of the week.The lady buying the set loved the bench.  She has two little ones and one on the way and she said she was worried about the benches with no backs and afraid the kids would turn them over too easily.  She loved how heavy and sturdy the chair bench was.

The 2nd table top I did is pictured below.