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French Farmhouse Table…My Muse, His Muse

DIY

french farmhouse table diy

Our new French farmhouse table that we built and love:~)

I’ll tell you a little bit about how we put all this together with a little DIY and a pinch of elbow grease…

french cane chair

 

My muse is generally something with French style elegance, as in this Shabby Chic Couture Darcy Chair

 

shabby chic darcy chair
His muse is definitely more on the masculine side of rustic, but he appreciates French style, maybe since I’ve turned him onto it with our many trips to France…
Restoration Hardware Reclaimed Wood Table that we BOTH love and want, but the price is not something we can deal with. We are DIY’ers and have owned a construction business for many years now, so we know how to do things in a less expensive way…

 

restoration hardware french farmhouse table
One of our “will get to it some day” projects was to change out our dining room table and chairs. A serendipitous moment recently occurred when I came across the chairs that I’d been searching for for months on Craigslist. Yep, Craigslist, which I’ve pretty much given up on lately because it’s not great where we live…
french chair diy
Someone was selling a dining room set near our beach place as she was moving out of state and didn’t want to take much. She had a less than stellar photo in the Craigslist listing and I had to get my magnifying glass out to see if the chairs were caned because she didn’t indicate in the description. I called, she said yet and sounded legit and we went down to see the set. We didn’t need the table and did some bargaining for just the four chairs, which by the way are vintage Thomasville. We only had my small convertible, so gave a deposit and went and rented a van for the day and picked them up. I was not giving up on these!
Cute French scripted seats that someone {not the Craigslist lady, who it turns out bought the set on Craigslist too…haha!} did a nice recovering job on. It was not the look I was going for, but I didn’t want to commit to changing the seats out just yet. I made some simple Belgian linen skirted slips, but I did keep the scripted seats intact underneath so that I can change it out…
shabby chic chair slipcover
Now on to that table and how we revamped it, which is why you are probably here…

Around 10 years ago I had purchased a table from a house sale for $20. The owner told me that it was from Pottery Barn. Even with all of the years that I’ve been doing this I still remember where I purchased almost everything…and the cost! Ask me what I had for lunch yesterday and I couldn’t tell you though…We have had this table up at our beach home, but it’s really too small at 6 feet, as that room is large and open. We decided to bring it down to our Miami home {where we are most of the time}. The dining room is smaller actually at our older Miami house and the chairs are coming here to live too for now.

Some time very soon we plan on building a larger Farmhouse Table for the beach house, but for now will be table~less there…

beach house table
We removed the top from the base which was pretty easy and simply unscrewed. The top has been saved for a future project…
We purchased six 2 x 8 foot pieces of Southern Yellow Pine from Lowes and had everything else that we needed already in our messy garage. Underneath the table we used some 2 x 4 pieces of scrap wood and built some cross bases. Assuming that you don’t have a spare table base lying around you can purchase table legs at Lowes and do something similar…
With a screw gun we carefully screwed the cross braces to the wood planks from the underside so that they didn’t show on the top. We did not use any screws that might show on the top (no nails used, only screw gun), as we wanted a somewhat refined look. Next my husband sanded to prep for staining…
how to build a farmhouse table
building a farmhouse table
For the staining I used one that I have used before from Minwax and you can find that {affiliate} HERE. It looked almost too dark but it’s not my first rodeo with working on stains and I knew that I’d be rubbing and buffing…
stain a table diy
Next came wax and my FAVORITE is THIS ONE {affiliate} that I’ve used for years and it’s stood the Shabbyfufu test of time!
In between each hand applied coat of wax I buffed by hand with old t shirts. I love the sheen….LOVE
how to stain a table

You really CAN meld two people’s styles and I’m loving the juxtaposition of the chic elegance with the rustic French farmhouse…

Love to build and save money as a DIYer? I have two more tutorials for Farmhouse Tables that you might want to visit!
Driftwood Style Farmhouse Table Tutorial

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Comments

  1. Your dreams look great together and love the table top and briwax although phew you can get so high from the fumes but it has a finish like no other and a great colour range too x

    Reply

  2. LOVE your chairs and the table came out amazing! It is nice when you can come together and compromise on a look with your husband. I'm still working on mine to agree on our fireplace.
    Wonderful news about Fifi's visit! I will keep my eyes out for your feature. 🙂
    – susan

    Reply

  5. It is just gorgeous, Janet. You must be getting so excited! I can't wait FOR you! xo diana

    Reply

  6. Ohhhh Janet…LOVE your chairs & table…looks gorgeous!! You & Mr. FuFu work sooo well together:)
    Have a good weekend sweets..
    Hugs..
    Deb:) xoxo

    Reply

  7. Love the new table top! Can't wait to hear all about your visit from FiFi!

    Reply

  10. Love this Janet- what great finds and love love love how that table came out too! Hope you are having a fantabulous time with Miss Fifi!! 🙂

    Reply

  11. Janet your table and chairs is beyond amazing! What an honor to have Fifi coming to your home!! Can not wait to read all about it! That is a dream come true!

    Reply

  12. just lovely!! I have the trestle restoration hardware table, which I adore, however it is really wonky. There are some places where plates and glasses wobble. 🙁 Beautiful but not practical when little ones dining on it. So your table is gorgeous AND practical :-). I love your chairs, what a find!! Enjoy!!

    Reply

  13. I love the contrast of the rougher wood with the delicate chairs. It gives me hope that you can meld two different decorating styles! Great job.

    Reply

  14. Love how your table turned out. I have the same vision for my dining room Frenchy chairs and a rustic table. Building a table is on my spring to do list.

    Reply

  15. What a fab find those chairs were!
    I'm your newest follower-stop by for a visit!!

    Reply

    • Hi Janet,
      I am a new follower on Instagram and recently signed up to receive your emails. I am curious about your French Farmhouse Table and what color of the Minwax wood finish you used. I love the look and want that same color for my farmhouse table. The link took me to the Minwax page on Amazon and the color was Early American, but I want to make sure this is the color!
      Thanks so much,
      Carmen

      Reply

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