Wednesday, November 21, 2012

DIY IKEA STORNÄS Dinner Table Mod



Our walls in the living room are yellow, and the walls cast a weird yellow light into the room which together with the blue sunlight made the table look really green in photos. So I turned down the yellow in my photo editor, to show you how the table looks more accurately.

We hope to be able to paint the living room white soon <3

The story: 

We had our eyes on a gorgeous dinner table at Pottery Barn, but we knew it was way out of our budget (over 2000 dollars with taxes and delivery). So once again we trotted over to IKEA to see what kind of tables they had in untreated hardwood. We found a Stornäs dinner table that is extendable. It was not untreated, though. The color on it felt really wrong for us, but we liked the table itself (and the 329 dollar price tag) so we decided a modification was in order. We felt the laquer on it made the wood look somehow "fake", and we wanted to bring out more of the natural wood look.
Stornäs photo from IKEA's site.

How to DIY:


1. Sand away the old laquer from all the pieces with sandpaper that has a big grain (we had grain size 60, and a Bosch Orbital Sander)
2. Finish sanding with smaller grain (used 200)
3. Wipe away the dust with a damp cloth, let dry
4. Stain (we had Minwax Wood Finish, color Special Walnut). Wipe off any excess stain with a clean cloth.
(I recommend trying out your stain under the table top, just to check that it is the color you want. And the stain can look quite different when completely dry)
5. After the pieces have dried for a day, use Minwax Paste Finishing Wax on them to protect your table without loosing the wooden look (it's not shiny as many other finishing materials)

Then we just built it all together :)
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14 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Great idea! I went to Ikea and my favourite table was Stornas, but my boyfriend and I hated the color.
    Seeing that it's that easy to remove the original color with the sander I'm thinking to buy it :)

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  • Hi Jennah,

    Thank you for posting this! I'm [two years] late to the game, but feel the same way about the Stornas table - great style, but not the right color. I live in an apartment building with no access to a real work area or tools, so I'm thinking of trying to peel the clear lacquer off with liquid sandpaper and then staining the table with a medium dark walnut color on my balcony. Do you think this process will work? I've used liquid sandpaper in the past to take off thick layers of paint from vintage pieces, but am unsure if it would be appropriate to use on this project...I'm a little nervous of screwing up! Any advice?

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    1. I've never used liquid sandpaper so I'm not sure how it will work. Sorry I'm not of any help!

      J

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  • I'm looking at buying this table used and doing the same thing, but it's in the darker brown-black finish. Do you think that color would still sand off? Or do you think it would only work with the lighter color? Yours looks great!

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    Replies

    1. Hi! Has it been stained or painted? Paint should at least come off, but if it's been stained the stain may have gone a little deeper into the wood? But probably would still work out just fine :)

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  • This looks wonderful! was originally considering a raw wood top with a mineral oil treatment, similar to a butcher block. I am curious about the finishing wax. Do you have to be careful with hot or wet things like you would with a poly finish? Looking for a low maintenance and raw wood look. Thanks!!

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    Replies

    1. Hmmm, we used the same stuff on our dinner table and I don't think there's been any issue with hot or wet things :) but I haven't put a lot of hot objects on it either.

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