Farmhouse Table Secrets

WOW! I am still blown away by all of your sweet emails following the Country Living shoot. One of the most popular questions via email is, of course, about Michael's fabulous farmhouse table! Y'all do have good taste....it's my favorite thing in our house too!

So today I'm going to try my very best to give you lots and lots of details and tips.

Before we get started, I'm going to share the most important secret to this farmhouse table finish ...

use old wood!

Now before you give up and go back to srolling through Pinterest, hang in there with me. It may not be as hard to find as you think.
Like I shared earlier {Old Blog Post Here}, Michael found a kind farmer who generously gave Michael our fabulously weathered- up boards. It was a win-win...the farmer cleared up some space and Michael made a table! Sometimes really all you have to do is ask with a smile on your face.

If that doesn't work, try searching for some salvage places in your area. Google your little heart out and you may just find one like I blogged about yesterday.

Let's say you've exhausted these options and STILL aren't able to find wood with some age on it, there are some techniques to make new wood appear old; but, in my opinion, they are just never quite as wonderful.

We'll talk more about those techniques later; but for today, I'm going to walk you through our process.

|1|. Since our wood was from an old barn, it naturally had LOTS of rusty nails that came with it as an added little bonus!
Remove those nails very carefully and then....
Scrub, scrub, scrub that wood.

That's what we started with.

After a few buckets of water mixed with some bleach, our driveway was black with dirt!

(Careful with the bleach - we just used a splash as we didn't want to discolor the wood too much.)

|2|. After the wood was completely dry, Michael began cutting and assembling according to the plans on Ana White's Site (love her so much!) Girl can rock a drill and stilettos at the same time - my hero!

{via Ana White}

|3|. Once the table was assembled, the sanding began. Ever-so-lightly on this step. Too much sanding will leave you with boards lookin like they came straight from Lowes. (Nothing wrong with that, but it'll just negate all that searching for weathered wood.)

We started with 150 grit on the edges and rough spots and worked up to 200 to soften everything up.

|4|. At first we stopped at the sanding...UNTIL, we discovered this little gem:

Briwax Liming Wax (ordered from Amazon)

A smooth paste wax formulation to produce a white grained finish to bare or stained wood. Two hundred years ago this liming method was used to lighten the dark wood panels in various mansions of the day. Liming wax is the predecessor of the “pickling method” used today. Liming produces a distinctive effect, which is traditionally associated with oak furniture. The finish is created by filling deep pours in open grain timber with the liming wax. Even when dry, the white liming wax contrasts with the darker wood, emphasizing the grain pattern. Liming wax can be applied direct to bare wood and onto sealed surfaces. – Source Briwax Woodcare

Just rub on with a clean dry towel, being careful to get in the grains of the wood. And then rub right off. You're left with a gorgeous white-washed finish that looks authentic rather than too forced. It's that last little touch that makes all the difference to your table.

|5|. After applying the wax, make sure to buff that wood until you get it to shine. We used an orbital buffer like this one: