I’ve always had a love for pedestal tables…maybe it stems from eating many, many dinners from a loved, round pedestal table. But pictures live these have always inspired me.

{via Wynwood Furniture, Country Living, Pottery Barn, Decor Pad}

So when I saw this beauty on Craigslist, I immediately imagined her in a crisp, beautiful white. And then, to my wonderful surprise, when I went to buy her, I saw her detail up close. Love!

So I sanded, painted (with a brush…small apartments are not conducive to spray-painting), sanded, glazed, and finished with a coat of water-based polyurethane (I’ll explain about oil-based polyurethane later)…and went from drab to fab. I refinished the table in two parts since the top separates from the pedestal bottom, but I did the same thing for the stop and the bottom.

Here’s how I went about it:
Step 1
Sanding, sanding, sanding. Then primer. I painted two coats of primer and sanded in between each coat. I used a very fine grit sandpaper and sanded by hand most of it. I did pull out my handy-dandy dremel to sand the carving on the table top to make them more pronounced.

Step 3

Glazing. Glazing really can be modified to whatever look your going for. When I did my nightstands, I knew I wanted a more vintage/Anthropology feel. For the table, I wanted the detail to pop, but the white to be the dominate color. So I painted the glaze on (and I found that it filled the cracks better when I used a bristle brush as opposed to a sponge brush) and immediately wiped it off with a wet, clean paper towel. It took patience get the carving on the table top to look consistent all the way around, but I just kept glazing and wiping until it was perfect {or imperfectly perfect}.

Step 5
Sit down and look at your beautiful table<