My Paula Deen Dining Table Look-a-Like!

A few months ago I had no idea that Paula Deen even had her name stamped on any furniture, then one day I went held an Uppercase Living open house at a lady's home and she had the most gorgeous dining table. I knew I would never be able to afford one. So I kept my eye out for one that looked similar that could be transformed.

Then I came across this huge table on craigslist for $300. I talked her down to $250, since 2 of the 8 chairs needed repair. I took the broken chairs to a friend who makes cabinetry and he repaired them for me for free. I was going to pay him, but he refused, so I made him a chocolate pie as a thank you.

I took the chairs outiside to primer them. I used Valspar white primer.

I them brought them inside and sat them one by one on top of the dining table and hand painted them with a brush. *Oh my this was exhausting. Each one took 2 hours to do 2 coats.

Thankfully, after the first 4 chairs were done, a friend let me borrow a paint sprayer to finish the job. Let me tell you, it was a lifesaver. I was losing motivation to get this monstrous job finished, but once I got to using the paint sprayer, holy moly was it easier! I wish I'd used it from the beginning. I'm told that the one I used is about $100. Totally worth it. I'm going to be asking Santa for one for Christmas.

Well after everything had a good paint covering, I had one last problem, 4 chairs had been painted by brush, 4 by sprayer, so the texture they had wasn't quite the same. Not that the sprayer gave it a bad texture, it just didn't match. So I went over the ones that had been sprayed lightly with a brush to give them the same texture.

The next step was to add some distressing. *I know, Paula's tables aren't that distressed. But I have 2 little boys who WILL distress them if I don't. So to prevent future stressing over paint touchups, I intentionally scuffed them up. 

If you'll notice in the close up of the next photo, Paula's table has a little bit of tea stain glazing on it.

I attempted to recreate this by mixing my own clear glaze with a latex paint called "fried dough". LOL. I love that name. It turned out quite nice!

Finally, I put a good coat of polyurethane on top of the table, so spills would be easier to clean up, not to mention it prevents glasses from leaving water rings.

 So here is my version of a Paula Deen Linen Dining Table set!

 And here is the real thing!