How I stripped and restored (ahem started to) this coffee table top!

Hello everyone! I'ts been an AWESOME week! Let me start by saying I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend. I know I enjoyed the extra day off...I truly needed it! I missed my sweet hubs so very much, I really hate deployments. It was really great to see everyone honoring veterans and their sacrifices, though. So for those that took time to do just that, thank you. I was also featured on a blog for the first time!!!! Holy smokes! A wonderful lady named Stephanie runs Furniture Flippin' where she has DIYers like me to submit their "flips" with before and after pics and she features them! She chose my numbered dresser and featured me on Memorial Day. It was absolutely the sweetest gesture and I just know that if we lived closer we would be painting/junking/thrifting bff's. No doubt. So thank you Stephanie! If you get the chance, head over there and check out my feature along with the rest of the amazing flips she has posted...

So...after this, I will do my best not to blather on and on about the Barn Sale as much....as much. I did want to tell y'all about some of the pieces I had intended to take, but wasn't able to get to in time. This lovely little table is one of them:

Ok, so maybe it isn't quite lovely...yet. Can you see that grizzled top??? Yikes! To be honest, I am not finished with it either! I just got finished with my first coat on it's top. I wanted to share what I used with y'all though, because I just KNOW there are those of you out there who have pieces with lovely "bones" but that just need some superficial surface help. This is actually a piece from the famed Lane Furniture Company. The under side of the top has the logo and a serial number engraved on it too. I just have to decipher it because it looks like there was some smoke damage somewhere in it's past. 

So...what did I use, you ask impatiently? Well! I know, I know...I babble. I used CitriStrip, the kind in the gallon jug thingy. It worked WONDERS. I also used it on a sofa table, but I will show y'all that miracle job later. So here is the link to it: Citristrip Stripping Gel. The smell isn't overpowering and pungent, so that's awesome. I did take it out on the porch, only because my Beckham (over sized German Shepherd) and Remi (semi-kitten/cat dude) are always in my beeswax and though it isn't as harsh as others...a snout full of it wouldn't go over too well, I don't think. In less than twenty minutes it had bubbled up and I scraped it right off, just like butter. Amazing. Where normally I might have sanded and sanded, the bumpy and warped original finish came right off.

My next step was supposed to be painting over it....there were quite a few stubborn water marks and I just didn't have the energy or inclination to fight with them. That was then...this is now. So tonight when I pulled it over to my usual spot in my living room, I stared and stared. I couldn't paint it. Not without that fight. So I grabbed my can of Danish Oil by Watco in Dark Walnut by Rustoleum and decided to give it a once over. Here is the before Citristrip and Danish Oil and then the after:

OF COURSE I didn't get a picture of it before I used the Danish Oil...what do I look like? Organized? Psshh. It was just a tad lighter and more faded looking than what after oil picture looks like. (The picture itself is a little on the light yellow side too, it's a bit darker than that) Once it is dry I will know for sure if it will work and if those water marks are manageable. I am still wrestling with the base. I was going to go for my fave look, the timber or wood top with a painted base....but being that it's a Lane piece...I am thinking of trying a full restoration on it. At least a restoration within my limited capabilities! I'll give it a couple more coats of Danish Oil and let it speak to me. Tell me what it wants...I know. I'm a loon. That's ok. ;) What do y'all think? Help!!! Love to all, Claudia

PS....I have in NO way, shape or form been compensated for talking about these products. I bought them with my own dinero, used them and loved them. I promise those companies have NO CLUE who I am. ;)