Restored Drop-Side Table

I love old furniture! But I have to clarify this...I love solid, well made vintage furniture, the pieces that generally no-one else would look at once, let alone twice. The ugly ducklings of the furniture world.  Antique furniture is beautiful, mid-century designer furniture pieces are superb, but I like (and can afford) the pieces where I can experiment a little, have some fun, transforming the piece into hopefully a thing of beauty safe in the knowledge that I have offended no one.

This lovely drop-side wooden gate-leg table was one such piece. it just really appealed to me when I saw it. No one else wanted it, possibly because it was crammed so tight into its spot at the auction with a heap of other things sitting on top. I crawled under and around it the best I could. Felt that it was solid, could see that it was well made and attractive. When I went to collect it with my professional removalists trusty husband and anything for mum son we found that it was not only solid and well made, but heavy!

First I needed to take it apart to sand, there were 10 of these solid hinges all around the drop-side. Each hinge sat inside a recess. See what I mean about well made.

All pulled apart, ready to sand.

I wanted to try some chalk paint and found some different ways to do this on the Internet. This is a mixture of a sample pot of Dulux Antique White Satin with Plaster of Paris. 3 parts paint to 1 part plaster. It applied really well.

Starting the paint. I didn't need to prime, just painted with two coats of the chalk paint with a light sand in between.

All painted ready to be put back together...oh, I did a couple of picture frames while I was at it! The next step was to again lightly sand, and then distress the table, it was my first time for distressing.

All the metal ware was scrubbed, and then primed with black metal primer.

The hinges were all replaced with new screws.

Putting it back together was like completing a jigsaw puzzle fun!The final step was was waxing and polishing the whole table.

Here it is, the finished table, very happy with the result!