Refinishing Decision and a Cane Chair

I need to stop looking on Craigslist or I need a workshop! I see quite a few things that I would love to purchase but I have no where to store anything. As it is my den area looks reminiscent of a Sanford and Son episode. I mentioned earlier that I purchased a Henredon Table and 10 Henredon chairs off of Craigslist. I had the table and chairs outside ( shaded area) for about a week until I could make room for them in my garage but then it rained. Yes, it rained in San Diego in September. Thankfully one of my daughter's friends was getting picked up right as it started and her dad helped me get everything inside. I love the table and I have been afraid to start the refinishing on it. I contacted Henredon to see if I could get any information on the table and chairs. I sent them a picture and the numbers that were under the table. They got back to me the next day and they told me the table was from their Capri collection manufactured between 1968 and 1976. The table and the chairs are solid pecan wood and the table has a cherry veneer facing. It was so neat to be able to get that information but they stressed not to use harsh refinishing products on the table. I have been flip flopping back and forth as to what exactly I would like to do with the table. My plan was to refinish the table top with a wood stain and paint the table legs white like my Oak table however, I am starting to really love the warmth of an entire wood table offset with white chairs. This is a bit of a problem, if the table top was in great condition I would just leave it as is, even though it is has the speckled finish it is actually nice looking.  There is no way I would be able to match a stain so I am contemplating trying to refinish and entire table. I know it can be done with time and patience's. I would love some input on this.

I started to strip off the caning from one of the chairs, which is a LOT of work. In a perfect world all the chairs cane backs would have been perfect but many were broken. I really had hoped the captains chairs would have been intact but they were not. I plan to recane just the captain's chairs and then upholstery the other chairs. So much work but the whole set was $95, and I know I will enjoy working on it. Here is the picture again for reference:

Well prior to finding the Henredon I bought the oak table and I found other cane back chairs. I finally got around to competing one of those chairs. I am happy with how it turned out. I used Annie Sloan's Paris Gray and Old White but instead of mixing the two colors together I dipped the end of the brush in each color. I used clear and dark wax and did a light distressing. I covered the seat using a canvas drop cloth. I did not sew the seat the way it was but I do plan to do that with the Henredon Chairs..

I would really love your feed back and input as to what I should do with the Henredon table, should I go with my original plan of refinishing the tabletop and painting the rest white, or go with what I am being drawn to know a whole refinished table look? Do you have any experience refinishing an entire table and if so what advice would you give?

Here is the before picture of the random cane chair I have:

                             and the after                          

Linking:

http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com/

My First Reupholstery is DONE!!!

I don't know how all the DIY'ers do it. I am amazed at how many projects they have done and seem to do overnight. Me, well my little project turned into what seemed like forever. I painted, repainted, and then started the upholstery part but with my weak wrists stapling became a "wear your brace, take three Motrin's and check back in the morning" kind of  deal. My husband already had a manual staple gun but I knew I would need something with a bit more power so I purchased an electric stapler. For every 10 staples I shot, 8 of them had to come out. I also couldn't hold the fabric tight and hold down the gun very well. I was so frustrated after all that I have put into this project to come to this road. Hubby called me at the tail end of my discovering I just couldn't do it with the tools that I had. I broke down in frustration telling him my woes and the fact that I have discovered from various blogs that pneumatic is the way to go. Bless his heart, he said "well, I guess you will have to get one".  So with hubby's go ahead I went out and purchased a pneumatic upholstery staple gun and air compressor. I first purchased one from Home Depot (just a basic pneumatic stapler) but it had way to much power and shot those staples clear to the other side. That just won't do so I did a search and it seemed that upholstery guns need to be purchased online. I kept searching and actually found a local tool store that had one in stock. I immediately returned the first gun back to HD, and then bought the upholstery gun from Tool Up. The night before when I had the first gun I found this post about Upholstery Basics:Tool Time which walks you through getting your air compressor and staple gun all hooked up. I have to say the instruction manual for the air compressor scared me crazy and I feared I would get blown up. So see this post it took the scary away (sort of) and I followed those instructions again with my new staple gun. I immediately noticed a difference with this gun, the size was more comfortable and I could just tell this was the right one. The first time I shot a staple through the upholstery gun it was such a huge difference, it had just the right amount of power to drive the staple into the wood with out blowing through the wood. With in 10 minutes I had the back of the chair completed and was so happy, I had to run in the house and give hubby a big kiss!
I still needed to pull the fabric tight but no pressure on my wrists while stapling. The next night I worked on the base of the seat and it isn't perfect but for my first upholstery project I think I did really well. I used gimp to cover the staples and I burnt burnt the heck out of my forearm with the tip of the staple gun..ouch!! I do believe is going to scar. I have to say with all the trial and error my first project was a success. I do cringe at the fact that I have a whole other chair like this one to complete. The actual painting an reupholstery was not biggy compared to removing the original fabric. This was a big, big pain! I am trying to decide if I want to do the chair exactly the same or completely different. I currently don't have a spot for them in my house so these are just for fun projects.
I also have 4 dining chairs to start on, these will be a much easier project with just a base seat.
I wish I could update you with something positive about my dining table but this project has become worse and worse. It seemed like everything was going great but when I applied the stain it went from bad, to really bad. I talked with someone at a wood shop and they said I needed to re-sand the table. This is not going well at all. I will be taking the table leaf to the store to see if this is salvageable or if I just need to scrap it. Good thing it cost only $25 dollars. Of course that is not factoring in the cost of supplies.. I will update later! Here are the pictures of my chairs! I mentioned it in this post, but my inspiration was from Marian from Miss Mustard Seed, she is amazing and with how busy her blog is she was responded to my email so quickly. That made my day, well that and my finished chair!! Paint colors used: Old White as base, Duck Egg Blue all over, Paris Gray dry brushed, and clear wax