A Little Table Magic and I Don't Mean Halloween!

     One of the things that we loved when we bought this house 7 years ago, was the open floor plan. Our kitchen, dining room and living/family room are all one large open space. They are divided only by the flooring. The kitchen is tile, the dining room is hardwood and the living room is carpeted. The table that we had in our "dining room" was actually a Crate and Barrel set that was in our kitchen in our prior home. You have seen it many times in my tablescapes. I have had a new dining table on my wish list for quite a while.

     On Friday, my dad and I visited our area upscale furniture store for their tent sale. As we walked into the building next to the tent, I spotted a table that was exactly the size and shape that I wanted for my dining room. It was definitely a "scratch and dent" piece. There were several scratches in the finish, but the real problem was a white circle the size of a dessert plate on one corner. It wasn't a thin water mark, it was a thick, cloudy white, very obvious problem. I said something to the salesperson about wishing it didn't have the mark and she said it would be $1500 without it. As it was, I talked her down to $125 for my table. I decided that I would clean it up and use a diagonal table runner to hide the "ugly". At least I could now seat more than 4 people at my table and I finally had a table that matched my other furniture. With the leaf, the table is 78 inches long.

     My dad went to work right away oiling, buffing and waxing the table. The grain of the wood was beautiful when it was cleaned up and even the white area looked a little better, but it was certainly an eyesore. I bought a new long runner and decided rather than stripping the beautiful finish off the table, I would just cover up the stain. I also googled water stains and decided that my table actually had a heat stain, not a water stain. Several people had posted that as a last resort, they had ironed away a heat stain on their furniture. It was suggested that you use a steam iron and a clean white towel. Place the towel on the stain, hold the steam iron over the spot and send a blast of steam, gently and quickly press the iron onto the towel and lift the iron and towel and wipe the area. My dad said he wanted to try it, I couldn't watch. Within seconds, the stain was gone. It disappeared completely. We couldn't believe our eyes.

    I won't pretend that my table is perfect. There are still some scratches that show if the light hits it a certain way. I don't care! I have 2 grandsons under 4, they run little cars on every piece of furniture we have anyway! The matching chairs are $300 each, needless to say...we will be using the Crate and Barrel chairs until we find a deal somewhere!

This is where the large white stain was.

I kept the runner...it wasn't a bargain, but I do love it!

I am joining Marty @ A Stroll Thru Life for Table Top Tuesday

I'm also joining Linda @ Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrify Tuesday