My kitchen table is a disaster but I haven’t wanted to take on an entire refinishing project.  This DIY tutorial is perfect because it is fairly quick and easy which equals painless in my eyes.  Plus, this is much cheaper than buying a new table.  Thanks to Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body for the great idea.

Hello friends!  Oh boy, I am EXCITED about sharing this project with you!  I am about to teach you how to refinish a table without sanding or stripping.  You’re welcome 🙂

We purchased our dining room table off of Craig’s List almost 5 years ago.  It’s a high quality, Pottery Barn table.  We scored the table AND the 6 chairs for only $400.  The table was already in pretty worn when we purchased it and we figured we would refinish it, eventually.  Well, after years of imposing our own wear and tear on the table, we FINALLY go around to it because we found some amazing Mohawk products that allowed us to do it without stripping and very, very limited sanding {only to sand off the tiny spots of fingernail polish I had gotten on the table–#oops}.  YAY!  The project took me about 3 hours, start to finish.  If I had known it was going to be that easy, I would have done it a long time ago.

First, let me show you how our table looked before I refinished it.  The edges were beyond “worn,” the wax finish was splotchy and the surfaces were just plan beat up!

Materials Needed

I was super lucky to get to try out these professional Mohawk products {it’s a perk of being a blogger}!  But, the good news is that Mohawk is launching a consumer line of all the products I used. Many of them are already available on Amazon already and the rest will be available very soon!  I will update the links in this post as they become available.  Also, if you follow Mohawk Consumer on Facebook, you can be sure to catch all the announcements in real time!

• Ultra touch-up marker
• Wax Wash Remover
• Wiping Wood Stain
• Quick fill burn in stick and burn-in knife {this tool melts the burn in stick, as you will see later in the post}
• Satin polyurethane
• Paper towels
• Latex gloves

How to Refinish a Table

1) Our table had an existing wax finish, so we had to remove it first by using Mohawk’s Wax Wash Remover.  I simply sprayed it on and wiped it off.  It took about 4 minutes to clean the entire table.  Easy, peasy!  The spray does have let off some fumes, so open some windows if you are working inside, like I was.

Apparently we are filthy animals, because check out what I cleaned off our table.  #donotjudgemeplease

2) Next, I spot sanded the tiny splotches of fingernail polish off the table.  Let me be clear that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED TO SAND unless you are like me and have little bits of paint on your table.  Most people probably protect their table better than I do 🙂

3) Then I touched up the scratches and worn edges with the Mohawk Ultra Touch-Up Marker.  This part is easy!  If you can color with a marker, you can do this!

Images from Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body.

For the full instructions visit Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body.