A picnic table for the Minis. :)

Our neighbor was getting rid of this little picnic table she had for her grandkids (who are too big for it now). Score for us! :) It was in rough shape though. The surface was really rough, a splinter waiting to happen! Something had to be done to make it useable for our little minis and their friends. In three easy steps I took this little table from drab to fab! :)

Before:

Step 1: Sand it!

I used an electric sander to give this table a much smoother surface and take some of the splintery parts off. I focused primarily on the areas the kids would be using. 

After a good sanding!


Step 2: Hose down!

After sanding it, I gave it a good cleaning. I hosed all the extra dust off and cleaned all the spider webs and such off it. Just after those first two steps, the table was looking better. I decided to take it a step further though to make it look finished.

Step 3: Apply stain! 

My parents had some stain left over from a project they had worked on this summer, so they let me use some. Yay, free stain too! :) Of all the steps, this one took the longest. It did go pretty quickly though, I wasn't overly concerned about it being perfect, the table isn't meant to be "perfectly finished" in my opinion. The part that made it the hardest was my son insisting I should be holding him instead of working on his table, by screaming in close proximity to me the entire time! :-/ ugh! I'd agree to a good snuggle time normally, but it has been raining EVERY afternoon around here this summer, and I had to give this enough time to dry before the downpour arrived, so I was on a mission! 

Thankfully he saw the light after some convincing and let me finish! :) 

All done!

Ready for a picnic! :)

Total cost for my "new" picnic table: $0. Free makes it that much better, right? ;)

What projects are you working on? Do you have anything sitting around waiting for a quick face lift?

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