Our refinished dining room table

We have a beautiful Amish Oak Dining room set. It was a fine set, structurally, but years of wear had taken it's toll on the finish. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the table before we started, but this is the only before shot I could find of the finish. Ick.

We started with the leaves, to make sure we weren't going to really screw it up. I was amazed how white the wood was after all of the sanding.

We learned a lot from the leaves and moved on to the actual table. Sanding and more sanding...

The stain we picked was pretty close to the original because we didn't need to refinish the base or the chairs. 

 1 layer of stain

 3 layers of stain

We added 3 layers of Glossy Polyurethane

And it came out Oh-So-Shiney! I am in love. The polyurethane really holds up to the kids abuse!

It took us several weeks because it requires a lot of waiting in between coats. Definitely not the easiest DIY project we've taken on, but not to bad.