Refinishing Your Wood Table: What You Must Know

There are a lot of reasons that a wood table from Loewen Design Studios will last so long into the future.

To list a few, we use solid wood, we use a wonderful wood finish, we use hardwood, and we powder coat our steel. In general, we use the best materials and practices specifically so your wood dining table will be great for a long time.

But what happens when your wood table starts to be less great? This can happen in a few ways, it could get scratched, it could be from wear, it could be from a tie dye incident. Whatever it may be, thankfully just about anything can be fixed. That’s the great thing about solid hardwood, and Rubio Monocoat. To fix nearly any imperfection in your wood table, you can sand it out. 

Before we go any further, I want to assure you, this is a last resort. Do not do this for small things. Do not do this for something that doesn’t bother you. There are actually a few good reasons not to do this. Let's go through those. Sanding a small spot on your table will mean the entire wood table is uneven. If you have to sand something out, it will leave a dent in the wood table, the depth of what you’re sanding out, and the size of the area you’ve sanded. Contrary to how it sounds, a bigger area will actually make this less noticeable, sanding the entire table that same amount will make it completely not noticeable. However, if doing that, your wood table will then be thinner overall. That’s the second reason not to do this. You’re making the table a little smaller. So you can only do this a certain number of times. Finally, it’s a lot of work to do this, it can be a little difficult to do right, it will mean you can’t use the table for multiple days, and unless it’s done right the wood table won’t be perfect again.

That being said, there are situations where this is a good fix. If you have had a wood dining table for a few years, and it’s lived a life and has dents, scratches, and bruises, you can do this and have a brand new wood table, at the cost of not being able to use it for a couple days. It can let you fix mistakes that happen. Refinishing your wood dining table can be a magic eraser to any and all imperfections. 

DISCLAIMER: if you’re someone’s child who just scratched your parents table and are hoping to fix it before they notice, do not try this.

ALSO: check in with us before you do this. This blog will give you an outline, but not the specific details.

So in order to refinish your wood table you’re going to first need to sand it. A palm sander, ideally a random orbital sander will work. With 150 grit sandpaper you can sand the table to remove whatever imperfections you want to remove. This is assuming the imperfection you want to remove is a dent or a scratch, if it’s a part of the wood that you don’t like it probably runs all the way through the wood so don’t try to remove it. Assuming you’ve evenly sanded the area, there won’t be much of a noticeable dent.

Then you can refinish the wood table. We use Rubio Monocoat, which for a lot of sciency reasons is very easy to use. Remove any dust from the area, mix the oil properly and then apply it to the spot you’ve sanded. You can do this with a paper towel. Then wait about 3 minutes, and then rub off as much of the finish as you can. When you think you have it all off, I would recommend to keep taking more off. If you rub the paper towel on it and it comes off clean, then you’re done. And then leave it for a few days before you use that spot, and after a week or so it should be fully cured. 

Again, we encourage you to talk to us before you do this, as it is a really significant choice and you can’t go back once you’ve started. We can talk you through how to do it in detail and you can see if it’s right for you and your wood table. All in all, this can help you revitalize your wood table to have basically a brand new table after years of having it.

Need to chat with us about your wood table? Contact our team today and we will happily assist you.