It all started with a battle between my roommate and I. He was moving out of the house we had shared for 8 months and we were dividing up our things while he was packing. We agreed on just about everything except for this bistro set. Landon and I did a lot of our bargaining down at the local dive bar and our memories on “who gets what” were a little hazy in the morning. Long story short, that very evening during a party someone had left some pizza on the table, my dog jumped up, and shattered the entire table top. Landon laughed as we were cleaning up the pieces and told me I could keep the bistro set. After that I was determined to make the bistro set look like a fine dining set. Maybe I would make the table top into a mosaic made from pieces of glass? Wine corks with resin on the top? Reclaimed wood pieces in a herringbone pattern? The sky was the limit and I was bound to make Landon eat his hearty laughs. I wish I had a picture of the “before” but I was too depressed.
As you can see in the picture, I stenciled the table before I stained it using this stencil. I used a water based primer and an oil based stain. I did this so the paint would repel the stain a little more. When I first tested it on my wood sample, I was using oil based primer and then oil based stain on top. I noticed the stain sunk into the paint and it wouldn’t have shown up very well. Water based and oil based are going to do a better job for projects like this.
Note: If you’re a dummy like me, sometimes you accidentally buy oil based caulk, which in turn repels your water based paint and makes your bathroom look dumb. However, for this project, oil and water are the perfect combination.
I like how you can still see the design underneath the stain but it has more of an aged rustic look to it. If you are not into the rustic look then simply stain first, let it dry 24 hours, and then paint on top. I may put this outside at some point and I will use a few coats of this minwax wipe on poly lightly sanding in between coats. Below I have a picture of a refinished chair I used the same technique with. I got the round table top from Amazon as well, and just used whatever white primer and stain I had laying around.
From Seed to Stove 