Last summer I built this farmhouse table to sell in our booth at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall in Fairfield, Ohio. I built it from construction grade 2x10s and my wife stained it a rich brown color. I thought the table would sell pretty quickly since I spent the time making real breadboard edges and Anita stained it to look like walnut. But after it sat in our booth for a couple of months, that wasn’t the case. We decided to bring the table home so Anita could paint it white.

When we put it in our dining room, Anita sat at the table and said that it was too tall. I built it to 31″ with 1/2″ protective feet on the bottom. She asked me to cut the table down 1″ so I grabbed a compass and handsaw and cut all four feet 1″ shorter. The feet turned from a tulip shape to a squished ball, but the legs still looked good.

Anita painted the table with white milk paint and distressed it to give it an aged look. I’m under a strict nondisclosure agreement so I’m not allowed to discuss her painting techniques. : ) Anita has people asking her all the time to give away her secrets so, all I can say is she paints with milk paint.

You can see the detail of her technique as she makes the grain pop through the paint.

A few days later, we bought four wooden chairs off of Facebook Marketplace and Anita painted them black. We ended up with a really nice dining room table for the time being until I build the table Anita really wants, a farmouse style trestle table made from white oak.